The Dove

There was a dove. One day it came walking over the gravel of the campsite towards me. As I was eating a piece of baguette (‘stick bread’ as the Dutch aptly call it, in appreciation of the shape as well as the texture) I threw some crumbs to the bird. It ate well and looked completely at ease with me. After a while, it even took the bread right out of my hands without flinching. It looked dozy and poorly, but I had hopes for its recovery and christened the poor bugger Lazarus. I even sang to it. I sang: “Lazarus dansar i Rotterdam, hei, en så lustiger dans!”

Every day, the bird would come crawling out of the bushes or from underneath my car. It grew weaker though, ate less, dozed off all of the time and wanted most of all to sleep in peace. It became more and more depending on me, for food and water, but mostly for protection. When I fed it, some of the other doves would come and, given the chance, would peck Lazarus ferociously in its neck. I threw little stones at them to chase them away. (I knew it was ridiculous and contra-evolutionary and would bring me closer to hugging abused horses in the streets while breaking down in tears… but the bird had chosen me, so what could I do?)

During the day, it sought shelter and when I came to my tent it stepped towards me for bread and peace and sat underneath my chair while I made watercolours. But she (I renamed her Suzanne when her chances looked waning) grew weaker & weaker. Then she stopped eating at all and just sat there sleeping, sometimes opening an eye to see what I was doing, or when other doves would scream at her. Next day she didn’t show up and I never saw her again. No more dansar i Rotterdam.

Lost in Myself

Did you see that gust of wind?

I thought I had brought a thousand stories with me. And perhaps I did, but not of the narratable kind. Instead I have a thousand stories in my head that are incapable of being shared. To try and describe my experiences is fundamentally useless when the story doesn’t have its own intrinsic value. Pure anecdotes are not for me. Good stories do not, ever, represent true life, just as no good painting represents an existing visual entity, be it a landscape, a vase of sunflowers or one’s creepy dentist and his wife holding up a hayfork in front of an old barn.

A large proportion of the stories I brought suffer from the ‘you should have been there’ syndrome, which makes my experiences no less valuable, but useless for writing about them.

Other stories held more public potential, I thought, but at coming home, tired and de-enchanted, back under the sterile sun of the north, while reading my notebook, I see I had overestimated the quality of those notes grossly. Walking through a park in Nice, being surprised by a statue of the unlikeliest of people at that place… Louis Armstrong. I thought I had struck narrative gold with that. But I didn’t of course. It’s what’s known in the trait as a ‘Useless Fact’. It comes from nowhere and has no place in the story whatsoever. Another example. I was walking through Le Cannet, a suburb of Cannes. I had visited the Pierre Bonnard Museum and wanted to see the rest of the village. It was during siesta time and the roads were completely disserted. Silence was absolute but for my footsteps. Then I saw a completely black cat with one white foot. Muttering to myself, I walked on. Around the corner I saw (in these surreally, disserted streets with the voodoo cat still fresh in my memory!) a bona fide Charlie Chaplin impersonator, costume & everything, who, no doubt, went home after a gig at the Cannes film festival. You can’t tell that! Not only is it a useless fact, destroying the story of the sleepy, old-timey French city, but purely of the ‘you had to be there’ kind.

Further browsing my notes I see that a whole lot of them are only somewhat palatable in Dutch and will suffer greatly from translation. And the rest is mostly rough, semi or completely crazy, unfinished gibberish, incantations, curses, hymns & abstract imagery, written in almost complete darkness while the wine was flowing and the bats were flying around all over the place... Well, perhaps I can work with that last stuff after all.

France Ho!

A few days ago I came back from my voluntary exile in Southern Europe. For many weeks I’ve been hiding myself in a land far far away, in sunny, exotic and inspirational places. I completely closed myself off from “civilisation”. No radio, telephone, internet, newspapers or talking to anybody for a month. I was free from society and its Trojan Horse of mindless babble. This got me involved with ‘natural’ topics, like the colour of shadows, the rationality of a street or the apatite of mosquitoes (what did those animals eat before Man? I’m sure they can’t penetrate the pelt of a beaver or cow). I have travelled seven highways, climbed seven mountains and I read seven books. I made many drawings (178), photographs (740 digital + 4 rolls oldfashioned film photos) and wrote one letter.

So here I sit, repatriated, blond from the sun and filled to the brim with stories to tell and images to expose… and something is stopping me. Perhaps all the stories are blocking each other like a bunch of old tampons in a narrow plumbing system, or, to be a little more graceful: like mighty wildebeasts all trying to get to the other side of the river at the same spot. I can see no great composition emerging from all this material, so I guess there’s no other way than just begin by telling some basic facts for now and wait for the wildebeasts to be unleashed. Pure realism is really not my thing, but in this case a necessary wall onto which the paintings can later be hammered.

Dramatis personæ: just I, your much-beloved, handsome, clever, visionary, hunky, good-to-his-mother, lonesome cowboy & decadent bastard of a narrator. Place of action: after a start in my hometown Hoorn, we almost instantly translocate ourselves to the South of France. It was 6pm on a typical Friday when I waved goodbye to my house (it never waves back) and boarded the blue 1998 Peugeot 106, licence plate number SR-RX-40; leaking a little oil, the passenger door closes badly, the cassette player is broken and the axes produce a distinct rattling noise when cornering, but otherwise it’s in pretty good nick. (Let one be precise.) In the (nameless) car I had my little fold-in bicycle (named Bliss), my beautiful tent (later to be christened Le Château Rêve, and later still Circus Tinus), ten books, drawing material and a lot of doubts (known as Demons & Dreams). The only thing I had forgotten was a corkscrew.

These facts are as boring as fat free yogurt… Hurry! Hurry! It was the third time I saw my beloved Aix-en-Provence, Paul Cézanne’s stomping ground and heart of the Provence region. I aimlessly walked around in the city, the museums and in the unsurpassable nature. I climbed the mountain, Mount Sainte-Victoire, in the rain, I went through the valleys in blazing sun. I cooked, I camped, I read, I ate, I drew, I drank, I dreamed. I was loving nature, I had fits of laughter, I sat with the bums, I mingled with the chic, I thought about the troubles at my work and my lost friends, I had nightmares.

One day, it was time to leave Aix. I decided I needed to go see Nice on the coast again and be in its delightful and ridiculous surroundings. Yes, this was a goal! I zoomed to Nice driving 100 miles an hour and playing 'Radio Côte d’Azur'. When it came on my tuner, I fell into a godallmighty great rock song with an epic guitar solo that went on for at least ten minutes, and I was shouting and slapping my knees and steering wheel and rocking my head. Well, you all know how it is with rock 'n' roll. I tell you… then & there, it was The Greatest Song Ever! Too bad I never heard who it was by. When I reached my destination, “Holidays in the Sun” by the Sex Pistols were on. I was transformed. I was manic, free and happy and stayed so for nine days. Nice is one of the last strongholds for ‘real life’ on that bizarre strip of coast of luxury living, with Monaco in the East and Antibes and Cannes in the West. Nice still has ‘folk’ in it. It is superb. It is alive.

I drove my bicycle a lot, wondered around the cities and museums, swam the refreshing water, made underwater pictures at Antibes and got seriously involved with obsessions and vacation madness (I don’t know how much of this can be disclosed – some things are too private to be vulgarized with realism). Obsessions and madness are good things to have. I pity the indifferent, the bloodless and the sane.

I moved again. To Cassis, a friendly, touristy fishing village near Marseille. I wanted to see for myself why so few people went to this second biggest city of France. When you hear about Marseille, it’s always about organised crime, heroin traffic, highway robbery, right wing extremists and race riots. So… let’s go and check it out, I thought. I can report: Marseille is a fine city. I was neither mugged nor buggered… And this too is a real live city, with original inhabitants, a culture and a pulse. The other attraction of Cassis was the natural area called Les Calanques. That was completely unbelievable and made it into my personal Top Three of Most Beautiful Sights Ever Seen, in no particular order, accompanied by The Autana tepui in Venezuela and the island of Værøy in the Norwegian archipelago the Lofoten. Les Calanques is a series of electric blue sea inlets deep in the stunning, harsh Provencal landscape. It was a magnificent thing to see from above and absolutely sublime to swim in with goggles, for the sea was as clear as a baby’s bottom. It had 15-20 metres of vision. And the laughter and simple, sunny, innocent enjoyment of the many (all French) people ricocheted between the rocks and Love filled the ravine that afternoon. Perhaps one day I will tell the story of the two young women with whom I climbed down to the beach who started to sing a long and beautiful old song about the ill-fated love of a goat herder for a fickel young damsel… or so I imagine, my French is not that good. But this was a moment of sheer Magic and Enchantment and, therefore, it has no place in this account of facts and realism.

I finished this trip with a few days in the Burgundy town called Tournus. “I started out on Burgundy, but soon I hit the harder stuff” the Bard sang. And he was right of course, as he always is, even when he is talking undiluted nonsense. The harder stuff is the coming home. And hard it is. Please forgive me my realism.

Going Up The Country

Last night, I dreamed I was on a company outing. The gang and I had to partake in rock climbing under the instructions of someone introduced to us as a ‘holistic mountaineer’… a fairly harmless but New Agey paragon of idiocy with a milky dumb face. We were supposed to perform something that was called ‘the Strawberry Manoeuvre’, which meant that we had to dangle upside down from an overhanging ledge dressed in dark brown monk’s robes, or cowl (I had to look up this word).

The rest of my company was fine with all this. Some were even admiring our guru of the Alps; others began to quickly put on the robes and climbing gear. I on the other hand was bewildered and quite outraged. ‘Look here,’ I said to one of my comrades, ‘you don’t think I am going to  godbuggerybumholecheesehump hang from a mountain impersonating a strawberry in a cowl goddamned!?’ But nobody listened to me and they flew up the mountain like a band of pirates in the rigging of an entered schooner. End of the dream.

Probably a bit of unsolved aggression if you ask me… I have quite a bit of that. It’s the price that comes with being such a friendly giant. And people can be such son of bitches of course... Anyway, not going into that for now, it is my pleasure to announce that I will be leaving you for a few weeks. I will carry on my thoughts from a soberly furnished hut in the middle of an endless sun-bleached wilderness where I will be surrounded by my friends the crickets, the bats and the peeping and whistling of friendly little birds. Later, when the enchanted song of the oriole will get on my nerves like mustard gas, I will return to civilisation and all things will start anew. Till then!

Silence

It's hard to put my longing for being silent into words.

Footrace for Oysters

(With a tongue full of sand & glitter, and having no desire to speak.)

Benedicte was short and scrawny, like a herring. She was a typical ballet dancer, unscrupulous and cynical. You looked at her while Jacques the barman sang loud and dissonant. It was 3am. You could hear the sea in his voice. (Dreams of Marseille)

He burned down the world. He parked in handicapped places. She rode on the merry-go-round. An exposed place to be for a serious northerner. She said: ‘You didn’t find anything, love, but that was because you weren’t looking.'

Looking out over the empty sea with wet eyes… The sea looks back, over your head. When you landed on the island, you had to make a choice. You chose not to choose. You formed an alliance with this town.

Phil & Deirdre

Phil & Deirdre were the last people on Earth. A series of violent cataclysms and pandemics had wiped out the entire human population on the planet, bar just two people, namely Phil and Deirdre Hutchinson from 88 Tuscany Downs. They were the last, the very last. And after them… no more. Till about a fortnight ago, old man Karyotakis from Ashcroft had been alive and well. Deirdre had wished him a good day when he came by walking his dachshund. He looked fine then. Now he was gone too.

The History of Humanity had been a stormy one. From Adam & Eve to Phil & Deirdre in a mere 200,000 years. Still, it had been a colourful story, Man. From making fire by hitting rocks together to Les Fleurs du Mal. And much inbetween. There had been wars and the building of great and fantastical buildings, tubular steel furniture, the crossbreeding of horses and donkeys, the invention of Gods and smartphones, suits of armour, hotpants, existentialism, pogroms, Noh theatre, piñatas, outboard motors, soap operas, piracy, Tibetan throat singing, Oblomov, Time Magazine, space travel, Grandma Moses and garden hoses.

But all this was soon coming to an end with Phil and Deirdre being in their late sixties. They could perhaps live on for a couple of decades, if nothing seriously nasty would happen, but then it would irrevocable be curtain time for El Sapiens, the mighty usurper. The human race was gone but for just these two people who we find, on this fine sunny Friday morning, sitting in their kitchen at their breakfast table. Phil wore brown flip flops, Deirdre coral pink furry slippers. The sun peaked through the curtains, hitting the glasses of orange juice on the table. Phil cleared his throat as he was slicing the top of his boiled egg. Deirdre looked up for a while. Phil crumbled the pieces of eggshell between his fingers into the cup. Deirdre carried on spreading cheese on a piece of slightly burned toast. Phil’s egg was boiled too hard. He grunted. Deirdre chewed her toast.

It was 8:15, according to the clock, but there was no way of checking it. And it didn’t really matter anyway since neither of them had to be anywhere on time. Phil didn’t had to go to work anymore: there was no more work. He could do whatever he wanted. Today he was going to go fishing, he decided as he stirred his coffee. He watched Deirdre as she cleared the dishes from the table. Yes, fishing, that was the ticket. As Phil backed his truck from the garage onto the road, he noticed an unusual bump. He got out to see what it was. Apparently, he had run over Micky II, the neighbours’ cat. Which was a shame.

Behold!

A man sits by the window in his house in a green leather rocking chair. He looks outside, peacefully and bored. There’s no wind and light rains falls serenely. Across the street, on the orange tiled roof of the house on number 66 two doves chase each other. The man in the chair changes his focus to follow the drops of water gliding down the pane. They are mirroring the watery landscape upside down and minimized. After a while, changing his attention, he assesses the spring green on the hornbeams in the street. It sets him off on a course of thoughts about time: love, deception… life, death… ideal, sin.


Suddenly startled, he casts an angry look at the pale yellow flowers on his windowsill. His annoyance is short-lived because then he notices the chandelier alight in the living room across the street, and realises with chagrin that it is impossible for him not have an opinion about it. He tries to suppress feelings of contempt and despair. But he smiles. A stream of angelic visions came forth from the beguiling depths of his mind... Seven Giants were swinging Seven Pool Cues through the air and trampling on the houses as were they shoe boxes. First smitten was the Temple of the Hoaxing Chandelier at number three score and six, reduced to rubble from which purple smoke arose. Sea creatures with burgundy claws and the finest brass sneakers are gnawing at the holy foes who fled crying with great voices out in the street. Knights from the synagogues of Satan hacking away with sharp two-edged swords at little men in robes of white. And the number of the avengers was sixteen thousand thousand… they who brought fire mingled with blood, shouting giggling “woe woe woe”. And they burned with fire. And they killed with death. And overthere shall be no day... And we shall make us a city there, a city for whoremongering, for lying and fornication, a city built of gold and jasper, of sapphire, chalcedony, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, et cetera. And there shall be a great orgy for the beasts and the seven plastic gypsies, phony-balonies and workers in advertising… and all goodness will come to nought…

‘We rather embrace all evil than mindlessly celebrate but one false good,’ the man in the chair thinks. In the grey street, cyclists, dressed in rainsuits zoom by, bent over their handle bars. Feelings of compassion and its shadow futility are alternating. Then his wife enters the room with two cups of tea on a little tray. She sees him sitting there and holds still. ‘What are you doing?,’ she asks. ‘Nothing,’ he says.

On Joy

To Michael Little

A letter came today. It was from two, no doubt lovely, girls who wanted to know a little bit more about the nature and motivations of my work. Although I normally try to avoid any comment on my own work – let alone on that of others – I thought it wise to make an exception this time since the girls’ request isn’t an isolated case, but, on the contrary, a frequently recurrent event. I will present you their letter and my reply. The names and places have been made obscure with an initial. In fact, I have falsified more than just the names, not so much as to protect their identity, but because I believe a higher truth is gained by letting go of parts of actual reality. Their letter:

Dear Mister Paradise,                                                              4/18/12

We work for the Apollonia Herald, the school newspaper of St. Apollonia College for Girls in the city of K. and we thought – actually, it was an idea of Miss X. – that it would be jolly nice for our next issue to interview you, one of the gloomiest writers we know. The angle is to see why you write such sombre, glum things that make everybody depressed and miserable and perhaps we can cheer you up a little so that you can write funnier things in future, like our favourite author, Graig Inglis of “Lucky” the happy dog. Can we come to visit you, say next Saturday, and do the interview at your house? That is, if you don’t have a cat; I am allergic to cats. Please respond quickly. Yours truly,

Chantal X. and Daphne Y. (St. Apollonia)

That warms your heart, doesn’t it? Young modern girls, taking an interest in literature. Who would have thought it still existed in these times of practicality and emoticons? So, with much kindness and without further ado, I hauled my old aching body to the old Adler typewriter to send them a reply which, I hoped, would bring them pleasure and insight.

Dear Chantal and Daphne,                                           Whatnot House, 19 April 2012 AD

Please excuse me for using your first names, but I feel that this brings us closer together, which is always nice and in this case even necessary, considering the personal nature of the topic you are making me tackle. So none of these false formalities please and call me Martijn if you like. Let me see, the centre of your kind letter is a request for an interview with me. Unfortunately, I can not grand such request since it is my habit of never giving interviews. You can come by my house of course, but perhaps we can play lawn tennis instead, or chess and eat French fries, and see what great things the night will have in store for us. [An obvious joke since I don’t have a garden and hate playing chess, and where the hell would I find French fries in my house?]

However, I think I can accommodate your requirements by answering your questions by letter... unless you prefer to use the perfectly legitimate medium of e-mail, which will keep deforestation to a minimum; a cause close to the heart of the Apollonia Herald, as  I had the privilege to read many a time in the many articles about this topic in your school organ. A propos… might I be so bold and suggest an electronic newsletter or App version of it?.

Concerning your question as to why, according to you, I write ‘sombre, glum things’, and whether I could write happier stories? Those are two separate, conglomerate (that’s a thing composed of heterogeneous elements) topics really. First of all: are my writings sombre? That depends first of all on definitions and your expectations of a story. Unfamiliar as I am with Mr Inglis’ work about the happy dog, I cannot possibly compare my endevours to his. However, if I take a long and honest look at my own work (for what that’s worth), I’m afraid I have to say that to me, it isn’t sombre, nor glum, at all. If, in your views, a non-sombre story consists of the denial and dismissing of all other things than happy dancing bunnies and golden unicorns, singing along merrily and cuddling in each other’s snug little holes for all eternity... and people walking around with American smiles (see: American cheese) on their faces… perhaps then, yes, one could argue my stories to be a tat less sunny.

So it depends on definitions and expectancy. But even than… perhaps a ruthless self-analysis of my writing would answer your questions and be beneficial to your readers. Taking a close look at my writing, bobbing through all of its layers and looking at it from all angles, in its face, from behind, up, down and in the mirror... I will try to establish the overlying Motives, Subjects and Composition Elements for you. I think you will be pleasantly surprised to see them all being of a very, even surprisingly positive nature!

What are my Motives? As you can see for yourself, they are quite simple: Joy, Poetry, Mystery, Self-Critique, Absurdism, The Divine Tragedy and People’s Hilarious Self-Delusion, including my own. My Subject? That’s always the same: Salvation… salvation in the knowledge of the absurdity of taking life too seriously and salvation in loving our fellow beings... in a Zen type nothingness, sprinkled with nuts and sunshine…

If that eludes you (and who could blame you?), then I can talk about the elements from which I build my stories. Excuse me if I can’t tell it any more textual and that I have to take refuge to using metaphors. My stories are built like a symphonic orchestra, starting with heavy, slow, low layers of warm sorrowful strings, the basses, and tubas; to produce a background of comforting melancholia. Then violins, trumpets and bongo’s will form counterpoints, being shrill and comic... after those, singers, tenors and sopranos will come out of the wings to top that, being utterly ridiculous and confusing in absurd carnivallesque masquerades and chaos… Then, the orchestra looks for a complex blend in all of these flavours, really trying to get All flavours in, mixing it to a mélange of wakening, comforting, wrongfooting, rip the mask of existence kind of religious epiphany. And then, it tries to find the ground tone again with the music dying out in blissful amourosity between writer and reader. All in order to reach said 'sunny Zen nothingness'. Whether or not I succeed to reach my readers as such, I can not say, but that is my aim nevertheless.

So to answer your second question: could I write any happier stories? No I don’t think so since my writings belong to the absolute happiest and most nourishing ones anyone has ever written in my opinion, and I can’t possibly try any harder than I do. But try I will! Furthermore do I think that the kind of ‘happy stories’ you want me to write (if you excuse my presumptuousness here and jump to conclusions about what those stories could entail) are not happy at all. They serve no other purpose than pleasing your mothers, who prefer to see you as happy idiots; that's evolution for you. Other beneficiaries are: Mr Inglis, his accountant, the board of directors of his publishing house and perhaps your Miss X., who thinks that a story of a lucky dog will keep you docile and do you more good than a story of an unlucky dog, and I don’t. When it comes to telling happy stories about yourself... when it comes to dispensing that type of ‘happiness’ to others, that is a completely egocentric, selfish, yes villainous thing to do: by flinging your own happiness in people’s faces, you are not doing them a favour… you are doing yourself (the writer) a favour. What you are saying to your friends is: ‘Look at me: I've got a new doll, I have had a nice diner with Bob & Beth, I won the state twirling competition… be happy for me!‘ It is asking for other people’s happiness for you; not offering them any. A very wicked thing to do indeed, and not something nice little ladies such as yourselves should be doing! By sharing your sorrow in a beautiful and honest manner, you are lifting other people’s spirit and offering them friendship and comfort… a comfort no happy singing elf could.

I hope this answers your questions, but don’t hesitate to ask me more. And feel free to publish this letter in your paper if you like. Give my kind regards to  your teacher, Miss X. She, of course, is always welcome at my house, day or night (without Mr X. ha ha... a cheesy little joke for the grownups here). All the best with your admirable work and always brush your teeth well. Yours sincerely,

Martijn Paradise

Seven Wishes VII

The Coming… Salvation. It will begin with a slight creaking noise, or soft crunching, like trampled sunflower seed hulls on the cinema floor. Other instruments might join in and mysterious light effects take place. ‘Baby Face’ Jonah & The Unprodigal Sons finish their set. The crowd goes wild. Someone shouts ‘Get your smokin’ cut-rate miracles here!’ It is a cheap country carnival show. But beware… and be prepared! After the jugglers & the clowns, and accompanied by a brass band, artificial smoke and go-go dancers, He will come on stage… the Great Redeemer. First the Seven Dwarfs… than the Messiah. He will swirl His satin cape and pass round bananas and drink tokens before making everything One again. The coming of the Messiah in my living room. When? After the war… after lunch. The Second Coming in my living room… One wish. And women with beautiful breasts dressed in modest, unfashionable robes. White macaws with yellow crests. Universal understanding and kindness. Deserted restaurants. Belonging. Or to be a very slow ship.

Seven Wishes VI

May you experience a condition strongly resembling love.
May you experience a condition strongly resembling happiness.
May you experience a condition strongly resembling tranquillity.
And may you experience a condition strongly resembling eternity.
May you have a character and mind accessible to others and to yourself.
May you have beliefs in the truths presented to you and in the things you have feigned yourself to be truths.
And may you never write lines as cynical as these, but if you do, that you believe in them.

Seven Wishes V

Then I was a mommy and you were a daddy…

Then I was a bunny and you were a grasphopper…

Then I was a bandit and you had to catch me…

Then I was a fireman and had to save you from an all devouring hellish fire…

Then you were the Uncaused One, the Almighty King of Kings, and I was your most cherished creation…

Then I was a guard in a death camp and I had to separate the people…

Then I was a prison without inmates, a play without actors, a song without notes, a forest without trees, a poem without words, a…