As an aside, this got me thinking about the differences between traveling alone or with someone else. Alone there are no compromises, but also fewer surprises. I like both modes.

Anyhow. Amsterdam has several world class museums, the most famous being the Rijksmuseum. I visited it in 1984, and my journal tells me that I was a bit bored by this enormous collection. I still dislike the be-all-to-everyone style big city museums, and so does Ed, so it was easy to convince him to visit the nearby Van Gogh Museum instead. We both enjoy single artist museums; they are far more informative and relaxing.

The museum was quite good. We saw many familiar paintings, and especially appreciated our close-up look at this self portrait:

I always like exhibits showing the sleuthing done to uncover the painting process – previous works that were painted over, etc., and there was plenty of that here. The museum also had prints from its collection on display, and I loved the woodcuts of Félix Vallotton, particularly his Exposition Universelle series.

After the museum, we took a tram to Amsterdam Centraal so Ed could see a big European train station. This brought back memories for me, and I really wanted to hop on a train and zoom off to another country. It also, somewhat disturbingly, reminded me of Harry Potter.

Next we walked over to the Red Light District. Ed had stated that he wasn’t interested in seeing it, but I made him go. Even though it was daytime, there were scantily dressed women beckoning from windows. His comment: “They’re actually pretty!” We also saw some of the famous cafes where pot smoking is allowed.

By this time we were freezing, so maximizing Amsterdam meant finding a nice warm pub. We headed back over to  the Jordaan section of town and settled on the Wester Cafe, across the canal from Anne Frank’s house and Westerkirk. I had a couple of De Konincks, and Ed had several La Chouffes. We also had a snack platter of bitterballen, kaastengles, and vlammetjes. It’s not important what these are other than fried bar snacks, but we did get into a debate about what the gooey center of a bitterballen is. I thought it was sausage and lard, and Ed thought it was pea soup. I was closer to the truth. They were good though. At some point a bartender lowered a giant screen and the Manchester United v. Chelsea game came on and Ed declared that he wanted to stay in Amsterdam forever and ever.

It turns out it is difficult to maximize Amsterdam when it is so cold, and we probably stayed in the pub longer than we normally would have, but eventually we had to head out toward the tram station. As we crossed the canal though, we noticed that a lot of people were out skating. After watching for awhile, Ed and I crawled through a small boat and onto the ice ourselves. Our low-traction shoes were as good as skates, and we skidded and spun around as the bells of Westerkirk began ringing. It was wonderful to be a part of the joyful twilight laughter.

Amersterdam, maximized.

I started to go through and pick out favorites, but I just started clicking back and re-reading them all so I’m not going bother listing them. Although I liked this recent cover letter quite a bit:

First, Ed was absolutely right that this show was right up my alley. Wonderful charcoal drawings with a scientific element? Check. Video? Check. Animation? Check. Unique music? Check. Humor? Check. Robotics? Check. Bird images? Check.

So what is it? Well, mostly film installations that include animations done in charcoal or chalk sometimes on a single piece of paper (i.e. he modifies the drawings in place by erasing and redrawing), and sometimes the paper is book pages, and sometimes there is some live action with the animation, and sometimes the live action is Kentridge himself, and sometimes the animation is projected into a puppet-show sized theater, and sometimes the theater has mechanical “actors” made out of paper and erector set pieces and drafting instruments that come out and perform some actions that they have been programmed to perform. And but also many of the very large drawings used for the animations are displayed on the walls, and everything is set to music composed by Philip Miller, and sometimes there are as many as 10 of these films being shown surround-like in one room, but it all works so well together that you (I) stand there for forty-five minutes looking around, jaw agape. Oh, and some sculpture.

In addition, there is an animated charcoal film that is projected from the ceiling as a ring and it spins, and the drawings are distorted but the whole mess is reflected up onto a mirror-like cylinder in the center of the ring, and on the cyclinder the drawings are not distorted, and they move around the cylinder and tell the story of the 1935 Abyssinian war, and the whole effect is as beautiful as it is technically astounding.

We did not allow enough time for this exhibit, and at 5 o’clock Ed found me and told me the museum was closing. I hadn’t seen everything, so I spent another 15 minutes or so dodging docents (one of whom saw me but pretended he didn’t; he was the one who told me earlier in response to my questions that the exhibit came with its own technicians who were hidden in a room to fix things when they broke down). Eventually though a younger security guard told me sternly that the museum was closed, and we left. The exhibit is there a few more weeks though, and I plan to go back.

Two of the best pieces in this exhibit were derived from opera stagings Kentridge has done. The miniature theaters included films created for a production of The Magic Flute in Brussels, and the room with lots of projections in it that I couldn’t stop looking at was from an upcoming production of The Nose for the Metropoliton Opera.

New York Times article about Kentridge
William Kentridge’s “Five Themes” exhibit

Sunday I used my free ticket. I enjoyed seeing the big mansions on Swiss Avenue, as well as an old house on our street that was saved from demolition last year and is being restored by Preservation Dallas. The weekend also included parties on Swiss, carriage rides, bands, art booths, etc.

As much as I liked having an event like this in the neighborhood, I was still sad to be missing the Art Car Parade in Houston on Saturday. So far I haven’t found anything in Dallas like the Art Car Parade / Museum, the Orange Show, the Beer Can House, Project Row Houses, etc.

And a sad note from Houston: Saturday night after the parade, the curator of the Art Car Museum was killed by a drunk driver while sitting on the curb in front of the museum on Heights Boulevard. He had driven one of the art cars in the parade that afternoon.  I’ve met him before, and it’s a shame.

Erica and I did go see Ratatouille last night, though. I didn’t think it was quite as funny as The Incredibles, but it had a good story and really phenomenal animation and modeling. The restaurant/kitchen scenes were especially amazing. If you didn’t know any better, you would assume some of it was animation overlaid on a real-life background. The food actually made me hungry. I would actually see it again (or buy the DVD) just for that. I can’t imagine how realistic CG animation will be in just a few years.

So far they have covered quiltmakers, potters, glass artists (including Dale Chihuly), basket makers, weavers, furniture makers, and jewelers.

As usual with PBS shows, the show website has a lot of good information as well.