.. rooster crowing once was a national sport for the catholic worker, practiced after Sunday Mass at the nearby cafe; as many crows as possible in one minute was and still is the simple rule.  There is a cautious revival going on and our cute Anvers Pearl Gray Beard Bantam Rooster takes advantage of that situation: just three and already champion of the province Limburg! Weighs 800 grams and daily picks 60 grams of the finest maintainance- and breeding grains, mixed with vitamins and minerals. No epo! His character is spirited, assertive and vain and as a real champion  he resides, and surrounded by dozens of crowing colleagues, in the best part of a converted chicken shed. There they listen all day to devotional music, mixed with L von Beethoven and A. Rieu, put low after sunset.  Tomorrow morning after a good long nap they will greet at deafening strength another new day ..

..  Untill now I’ve never seen a real bailiff. On TV there are lots of them, acting in those socially motivated reports in which they arise as social dwelling genes, overflowing with empathy. Suddenly one was ringing at my glossy lacquered door! I looked at him and wondered; don’t they get extra money for clothing and are there any dressing codes? A decent job in name of the Queen, but why with such a total lack of decorum? The smug in his thirties, who looked like he just left a fitnesscentre, wore sneakers, sweat-pants and had  a carrot tan from a jar.   My accountant writes letter after letter – against the usual fee. Today he received your answer no # with the usual content; our sincerest excuses, the money will be returned as soon as possible. So far and as usual; I still haven’t received a dime ..

.. according to her fanclubsite, Quinty aka Trustfull – Van der Broek loves travelling, fitness, reading, movies, horse riding, aerobics, swimming and when the sun goes down, the nightlife with the local jetset. New on the list is welding, tinkering at and driving with those reborn cars. After the semi-commercial programs about money, houses, cheating, food and gardens she soon will plunge into the multi faceted and totally sponsored world of The Automobile. Allrounder and multi talented Quinty is judged by her fans as one of the, if not most beautiful woman on the commercial screen. Once I gave her a hand in the boardroom of a profesional Rotterdam football club and suddenly I had the answer to the question why that afternoon her husband with the gracious surname had trudged so striking listlessly over the playfield .. 

.. leafing through the book about the work of our late friend, I noticed how lovingly he observed his son. And please, take this from me, there’s nothing more difficult then photographing the ones you love. It is and will remain an impossible task because our own memorycard simply can’t handle so many different senses. Photography – and if it should be an art anyway – is the art of remembrance; you look at what once was for a short moment and never, never will come back again. Dear Edwin, wherever you are, and friends, be proud of this book and exhibition ..

.. the horn is ripped from a DAF truck, direction lights from a IVECO, Peugeot rearview mirrors are bent into a more aerodynamic shape, even for an amateur much too weedy exhausts from a Harley motorcycle… I don’t describe the loving tinkering in the garage, creating a homemade skelter for the kids but diligent and pro-fessional efforts by an Italian mechanic, piloting an imported brandnew American Ford GT Heritage through the grim rules of country’s inspection. Obtaining a type approval and getting final permission to rumble with this monster on nation’s asphalt. The original horn, much to everyone’s surprise, didn’t produce enough deci-bel, both direction lights on the flanks weren’t or hardly to be seen by other road users, a huge blind spot yawned in the rear-view mirrors, stationary the bulky excausts made far too much eerie noise and the size of the original rear tires was so extreme, the new European odometer showed our civil servants apocryphal speeds. The GT is a free and much better succeeded interpretation of the iconic Ford GT40 from the sixties. Actor, womanizer and racing driver Steve McQueen and the GT40 played the leading roles in the Mother of all Racing Movies; Le Mans ..    

.. of course, every woman so also a noblewoman should protect her precious reputation but, ultimately, does it concern others? I want to visit you again, have a talk, a long walk, make some food for us, simple wishes for someone who likes to see and wants to be in your neighborhood. Didn’t I tell you I’m also a great carpenter? According to the Koran a man should beget a son and build his own house before dying. I’ve completed both holy tasks but; do I have to leave you allready? I’ve flown to the South of Italy for a few days, In a brandnew Cessna private jet which smelled of avgas and fresh leather, my co-pilot was barely twenty, wearing a ponytail and worked himself through the endless procedures like a stilleto:as his generation expresses, this young man was cool! Fantastic food, a beautiful room and The Street of Messina under the balcony. While taking off we almost smashed into a slow flying yellow and orange firefighting aircraft crossing the runway while attacking the first forest fire. It was already spring and twenty degrees Celsius on Mediterranean sea level.

Take good care of yourself, hope we will meet again ..

.. behind my back lies the savage heart of every Lamborghini Diablo 6.0; 12 cilinders at an angle of 60 degrees and a displacement of 6 liters. 4 fierce rotating camshafts learn 48 valves what a Italian means when he says the word Dance! 13 liters of extra vierge olive oil  in the sump and lubrication system. 15 liters of blessed sacra- mental red wine in the cooling system, two huge ventilators with almost constantly rotating fans which try to cool down the temperamental Italian hothead. All this together produces 550 ferocious horsepower who are released on the public road by a fourwheel drive that provides a top speed and acceleration that forces every police officer into spontaneously crying. Avanti! ..

.. now you’ve got my answer to your constant baiting which you still dare to call humor. Initially I didn’t want to spend one more word on the matter after I left this morning but the unnecessary intervention of your son hasn’t helped me with that; you both are jumping into each other’s arms, as it happens in prematurely broken famelies. I ‘ve noticed that you’ve sought help, support and protection at the bosom of J. In a matter that’s only concerning us. What are you so afraid of, you little newsmonger? We never became true friends, I had too little faith in you, in your complexity, early it proved you didn’t poses the qualitys that I once ascribed. Don’t worry, I still value the others being stronger and smarter in advance. I hope I’ve learned something and it sounds strange in this circumstances; I wish you the best and thanks for the good times ..  

.. being part of a police arrest team was her biggest dream. Which didn’t came true and the crooks should be fortunate: Liesbeth looks like a woman who firmly stands her ground. Her late father, whose condolence reception was held at his own request around the boxing ring, took Liesbeth on her seventeenth birthday to his boxingclub and from that moment she was  hooked and trained fanatically. The Old Man forbade his daughter to step into the ring, insisted for seven long years. Liesbeth of course persevered and during her first match she was so nervous that she just wanted to get out of the ring and constantly forgot which leg had to be in front. The first fight was lost but all subsequent won and dad was sitting on the first row. She became National Champion, married a kickboxer en was pregnant the following years. To be a mother of three isn’t conducive to a shiny sports career, her body protests with nagging shoulders and knee injuries. Liesbeth finds sparring against men no problem, but most of them do, pretending they don’t like to hit a woman. But woe when Liesbeth’s mighty right hits them, all courtesy is put overboard with utmost urgency ..

.. An average horse has the weight of a small car and owns a pronounced will and character. You there, untrained and open-minded, are free of course to jump like a full blooded indian on the first horse you encounter. But I assure you that in seconds gravity and horse will throw you ruthlessly to the ground. That was riding lesson number one. And what did the noble horse teach you so subtly?  That it is recommended to get lessons first at one of the many riding schools. Where patient instructors of both sexes in full uniform, with whip and highly polished boots await you to trot along towards the equestrian passport. That goal, like getting a car license, isn’t fixed in a few lessons. And in doing so the horse must be groomed after each driving lesson, the sable painstakingly mucked while the steaming animal tries to bite and kick you. For inexplicably and yet not scientifically researched reasons the majority of the riders are females between twelfe and twenty with blond hair and a ponytail who also obsessive love their little dogs and dolls .. 

.. this place is really the Garden of Eden. When I came here a long time ago the locals kept a suspicious eye on me: Hey you over there, you are and will stay an outsider…. But gradually they started to appreciate me, at least for the things I do in nature. The dike on sea hight behind me turns out their world which is far too busy for me. Here you step into a peaceful and sometimes rough world with his permanently changhing seasons. My life is one with a permanent view on the river and with my back against the dike. I have to take much care of the house and garden around me, everything needs maintenance and permanent attention. I’ve become a real do-it-yourselfer. Pleasantly I go through summer, the river is far away, the boats  are almost gone, floating below the summerdike, the beautiful but haunted muskrats swim past me as I fish in my pool full of water-lilly leaves. The autumn storms shake my house and willows and the rapidly rising water in spring when the snow melts in the Swiss Alps sometimes overflows my kitchen and sleeping room. I have a pair of swans with six young this year. Wich feels like a reward for good management ..

.. Shivering with excitement I lie in the wet tall grass at the edge of the orchard, the thin lines firmly pressed in my hands. It’s midsummer, school holiday and I’ve got my first job. Above it all is the blue sky with slowly drifting, expanding and higher and higher climbing thunderclouds. There is the tolling of the timber harvester, pulled by sturdy black and brown horses who in a modest tempo try to get the grain safe into the barn before the thunderstorm begins. The lines disappear into the grass and reappear a hundred meters further on, climb along the dark trunks of the cherry trees and dissolve into their dense canopy. Where they are tied to empty cans that are going to make a horrible noise when I pull the lines. Fifty cents an hour is the reward, plus a wooden box with cherries which my mother will conserve in glass jars with rubber rings. I’ve stolen one of them to construct a perilous cherry pit catapult which I’m going to use at the brutal Stuka starlings when they dare to break through my Wall of Sound .. 

.. The similarity in driving experience is striking between the two Enrico Fumia designs, the Alfa GTV and the Maserati 3200. Their small windscreens forces the driver to look at the road in front of him, the only correct layout of the dashboard instruments: big tacho- and speedometers centrally behind the steering wheel, gauges and secondary buttons on the right. The firm leather seats provide a responsive steering attitude. Now you get a free lesson in handling this drivers car, never, I say NEVER, want to hear or read the word sportscar again. Sit upright in the half-lotus position, breath deeply, don’t forget to use the safetybelt, start the six-or eight cilinder and enjoy their wonderful humming sounds. Radio off! Rotate your right hand in the beggars position and slide the fingers under the leather gear knob, push it gently through the gears. Give motor and oil enough time to reach operation temperature. Enjoy roadhandling and sounds, keep control over the car and yourself, steer, throttle and brake  – quoting the Spanish poet Lorca – like this is the very, very last time you make love ..

.. A few lines about what’s bothering me. Your statement that jealousy is something unknown to you is the ultimate proof that you’ve got humor and self-mockery. Your usual unprofessional and thoughtless gossip has reached my acquaintances. Mrs. X. in the adorable provincial town of Z. told me unasked about your wronged nagging about me. You did the same at your longtime academic ex friend and ex colleaque  Z. Your aside that the cover of my latest book was the best of it and that the content  aroused your laughter and compassion. May I humbly point out that nevertheless I manage to publish my books at a reputable publisher. And everytime when that happens it fills me with  joy and pride. A simple heartfelt greeting from the sunny countryside. To you who’s living in the intellectual and artistic center of what is both our country ..

.. meanwhile it has been a while ago, about two and a half thousand years to be precise , when a longhaired Greek sage looked with both hands over his eyes at a Roman market which was loaded with luxury goods from all over the then known world, sighed deeply and concluded with relief ; there are so many things I don’t need… The same conclusion came over me when I saw the first advertising pictures and movies in which a iron whale, dangling beneath ‘world’s biggest helicopter, flew past New Yorks’ Statue of Liberty. BMW bought ailing Rolls Royce and made it profitable again. Mercedes hastily reanimated Maybach, a car brand that by exception didn’t make a fortune by colloborating with the Nazis. This version of a Maybach is de facto a Mercedes S. With a elongated and different styled body according to the lid-and-buttercup principle; a standard frame and standard parts who are hidden by a different coachwork which carries a illustrious name from the past. And all with a price that’s four times the standard one .. 

.. Nulla tenaci invia est via; for the persistent no road is impassable… The sturdy slogan of a tiny Dutch automobile factory which recently fled to England. The story;a planner from the East of Holland designed and tinkered nine years at a small twoseater in a shed next to his ancestral home and called it Silvestris. A self-proclaimed entrepreneur from the West heard about it, travelled gallop East and convinced the planner to market his cute hobbyproduct as a super sports car. The little one became a Spyker, which means iron nail in Dutch, named after a coachbuilder before WWI with ample aviation history. Nevertheless the present logo has a wooden propellor and -wheel. A Spyker relic that pops up once a year at Taxday is The Golden Coach. A gift from unemployed workers during the (B)ig  (D)epression to Queen Wilhelmina – in her time already one of the richest women in the world who also escaped to England before the next war started. Nine years later. The assembly hall of our entrepreneur, whose (B)iggest (D)ream he heralded that every boy should have a Spyker-poster on the wall of his room, is empty. Big Mouth Victor M. is sunbathing in the South of Spain and doesn’t think (or dares) about travelling North. The Golden Coach of King Willem needs expensive repairs and again; docile taxpayers pay the bills ..

.. The three sheep who are expected to participate in a game of herding are tangling almost literally as canned sardines together. Sheep don’t understand the nervous intrusive and always barking dog, they never will. A sheep wants to graze, ruminate, digest and repeat that routine endlessly, procreate in the open air and to be left alone; a sheep has the same behavior and simple wishes as a human being. A sheep chews and thereby rapidly wears his yellow teeth, drinks from pond or ditch and  once a year and lying on his back gets stripped of his soiled jacket, gets a wormer and antibiotics when he has caught a cold. A sheep has respect for the shepherds’  dog but only if the dog has prevalence. If not, they put their little hooves in the heather or mud, lower their horned head and bleat harassing at the barking wimp. The dog at all times isn’t allowed to bite a sheep. If he does during a match, both dog and shepherd get a red card .. 

.. Month after month, the glossy covers show us the same scene: a dripping and proudly held up big or ridiculous small fish which, and depending on the species caught (for example a slimy tench or always aggressive looking perch and pike), the unfortunate stare silly or angry at the reader. Behind them rises invariably and dressed with a wool cap and earrings the prosperity head of a modern version of the classic hunter, the male angler. The interior of the magazine is peppered with brightly colored ads; rods of glassfiber in a countless variety of length and design, pimped reels, outboard motors on petrol or electricity, dark green tents and stretchers, smoke ovens, fishing boxes, fishing boats, fishradars, fishing lines, fishing knives, fishing hammers to smash fishbrains, fishing trips to every country and sea in the world and last but not least: a  imense quantity of pre-fabricated lure and bait wich all have a secret recipe guaranteeing monster fish. The annual turnover amounts to seven hundred million euros. Before someone has caught one, he or she has already spent more than two hundred euros .. 

Queens Day. Dear knighted Vincent M.

.. A royal ribbon! What a surprise! To perceive your noble head in the gallery of farm-fresh ribbon carriers. May I tell you; whoever or whatever may have settled your nomination, they couldn’t have made a better choice! Yes, we know of each others existence for so long, you always were my idol and guiding star and what a dizzying flight your  career has taken lately: a royal ribbon… You escaped  out of your – by conniving clerics and phlegm flagellates – terrorized hometown of Dordrecht.  Where, and to inform you, still blows the same depressing christian sewer-air from the Middle Ages. Only one direction was left: West, The Wide World, to the sinks of The Quality Paper. I had the honor and ineffable pleasure to follow you from afar. To be able to get a glimpse of you and your brilliant work has given that dull live of mine a spiritual meaning and direction. The Mighty, your countless concubines and their flock of children all over the world. I read in a glossy at the hairdressers that they admire you all, like a God. The way the world turns, his history, philosophy, you’ve put your Mighty Christian Stamp on them. I became aware that many Mighty continuously beg for your advices. Written or oral. Overnight the neighbors – who love and respect you deeply and are devoted members of your sect- regularly hear a doorbell and soft voices who speak into your intercom. Then the lights in your marble city palace will flop on and – and this is from a reliable source – you never and I say never will deny those poor Mighty your warm and selfless Christian services and diplomatic skills… Sorry for getting so emotional ..

.. He started to count with the help of the wallpaper in his nursery room. On which there were painted swarms of happy cooing pink babies. A week ago – and with the crippling fright of a sudden encounter, he saw such a baby back. One baby, two babies, three… Babies in the folding of the wallpaper, a baby curl which rose above the rim of the sink, folded in half babies around window edges and doorframes. Slowly at first but gradually faster and faster he counted the pink babies from left to right, from down to all the way up. There were lots and lots of babies on that wallpaper, in soft and sweet pastels. And if he, and sometimes long before bedtime, drew the curtains, the babies turned into blurry spots who had changhed their colors from pink to night blue. Then it became time for the loud spoken arguments down below. Who turned into screaming: they already started smashing the doors. He disappeared under the pillow and made himself a peephole by folding it around his head through which he could pry at the staring babies. But behind the door, under the bed and floor and through the pillow there were noises for hours which frightened him and made him feel sad ..

.. Originally The Harris Sisters were a trio. But after a year member three refused service and spend, according to hearsay, the rest of her working life as a calm and satisfied municipal official. Unfortunate but not insurmountable. Peke & Mo decided to go along, finally, they knew each other for so many years. In the winter of 1983 the three-headed parterre acrobatic act was rebuilt into one for two. Peke had already jumped around as a classic ballarina, did mime and street theater. Mo competed, made the people laugh in a cabaret group and was the front woman in a female rock band with the frightening name The Vendettas. Both took lessons at the circus school Osmani, akta the sisters Schoen(shoe) in Amsterdam, moved to the East to take acrobatic and clown lessons at The National Circus School of Joe Andy, aka Willy Klomp (wooden shoe). The school was situated in the Spijker (nail) buurt, once a illustrious whore district in Arnhem. Willy gave them the first of the many contracts that would follow. Ten years later it was over; the women felt themselvs worn out, especially lifting became inhuman heavy, travelling tiring. Both once had muscles of steel, the straps around their upper arms are sizes too big now. To do one of their former acts has become an impossibility.

Now adays the former Harris Sisters, aka Peke & Mo are running a circusschool, teach young and old gymnastics and both still are trully amazed and delighted when they discover a sophis-ticated new circus act ..

.. A buzzard couple circles in a summer thermal high above the treetops, her niece squats astride against a trunk: may I look if that’s alright with you both? From hearsay on school I know what to do and a boy from the neighbours showed me a picture of a man and a women who did IT and I had stared at them with a restless feeling. I saw nearly naked girls already. While swimming between the plump leaves and the languid sunbathing on the warm wooden fishing pier during last summer vacation. Leering at each other and those indescribable feelings of happiness and selfesteem when one of them let on that I liked her. But as naked as in front of me now… A dark hand grabs a white, places it gently between her thights amd pushes a few fingers inside. She closes her eyes. I study her face while I pat her. Please, be careful, I don’t want any children! Her niece creeps closer and gets wet spots on her jeans, has a finger through the seed and puts it into her mouth: it doesn’t taste dirty at all…. She presses herself between and imposes her arms and solid legs over us.

They deliver me to the field where my hoe and pitchfork are still lying below the beet tops. We kiss and fondle with confusing feelings of embarrassment and excitement. I lean on the hoe and see how they slowly paddle back to their asylum ..

.. And again there He was. In the disguise of a elderly fisherman along a straight canal. I was a little boy in shorts, standing quietly next to Him when a huge pike jumped on His silver bait. For minutes the nylon line drew nervous filigree lines through the dark bog water surface when unexpectedly the monster jumped out of the water in a desperate attempt to get rid of the burning hook. For seconds the yellow green skin gleamed in the spring sunshine, the fish smashed back into the canal, the taut cord broke, fluttered helplessly back into the canal and disappeared with an ever increasing speed.

A hand sought in the deep pockets of His fishy smelling overcoat for the usual caramel toffee and pressed it softly into mine.

” Wasn’t that magnificent boy?”

” Yes, wow, it surely was.”

Meanwhile looking for pikes between the dead reeds I sauntered back home with chubby cheeks and decided to tell them nothing about what just had happened. Moreover, did they ever believe one word of my enthusiastic told stories? ..

.. They are the fighter jets amongst birds. When they are still alive of course. How such a duck is flying and the speedy form it takes; a long neck with a forward piercing beak, two short and at breadneck speed around fluttering little wings with and at the rear a perky curly tail, legs stretched backwards. Observe the breathtaking way they dive with stuck out and widespread flippers and a brutal mix of contempt death and watch-me-being-tough into the water surface, on the paddling females and chase them with boundless energy. The brightly coloured males try to – and probably unintent-ionally – drown the terrified females. Or is this just a game, their game? By the way, did you also hate that awfull aggressive primary school swimming? ..