Live Music Capital

This past weekend I went to a "musical event" in Brussels called "Anti tapas," held in a cavern-like barrel-vaulted underground venue in the shady part of town near Anderlecht.

From the website, it looked great. I had great company, three wonderful Italians, and we had just had a nice dinner and I was excited.

But, then I arrived.

It was at that moment that I realized how spoiled I am from living in Austin, Texas for so many years. For one, the crowd was trying to be "alternative." What a joke. If you have been to an alternative venue in Austin, then this was Euro Disney in comparison. I am continuously reminded that as far as style or letting loose goes, Europe is about 20 years behind America. This was no exception.

I wanted to have a good time, but, I could not. As I say, the company was great, but the atmosphere was impossible. That is when I really, really appreciated Austin. On any given day, you could hear better music, for free, even on the street, and truly witness an alternative culture than what we had to pay for and muddle around in at "Anti Tapas." Was I glad I went? Yes, but only to remind me of how it can be better.

Yes, this is a bit of a rant, but it is also a shout out to Austin and to anyone that lives there to tell you that you better appreciate what you got. Because, I have been around, and for live music, it does not get much better.

Enjoy it if you are there, and go there if you haven't been.

Under the Chunnel

My latest translation job is currently translating an array of biographies for Northern and Southern Netherlandish painters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Sir Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordeans, and François Duquensoy, who despite being Flemish, was most active in Rome and was even called the greatest sculptor in Rome after Bernini. That distinction is quite impressive, along the lines of the French Surrealist poets naming Edgar Allan Poe as “one of them.” One of the recurring themes is that these were very international men, highly competent in a number of languages, something that is still very much a regional pride amongst the Flemish.

But, what is most striking is the concept of travel as opposed to today. Though many of them did “travel” to Rome, Venice or even, in the case of Sir (because he was knighted by King Charles I) Anthony van Dyck, London, it was a completely different experience. One of the things I love about living in Antwerp is that it is so accessible to all of these places. In three hours, on the train, I went from Berchem Station to St. Pancras, London, via Brussels. That doesn’t make most people here blink nowadays. I could have flown from Duerne to London in a fraction of the time, much less Brussels. But, with the Chunnel train route, it is incredibly easy and rather inexpensive, and three hours!!

However, translating these pieces I read about their travels and it could not be a more different world. When they would take a trip to Rome or whatnot, it would be for YEARS, not a couple of days. And, how they would get there would be through a series of city trips and stops, usually taking MONTHS to get there, not hours. Van Dyck ultimately did immigrate to England, where he died at his home in Blackfriars and having become the court painter of the King of England.

Another aspect of travel that is so different is the concept of the hotel these days. Now, because it is such a short trip for us in the modern world, and because of prohibitive costs and such, a hotel is a place you sleep, shower (if you are lucky to have good water pressure in Europe), go to the bathroom (if you are lucky enough to figure out how to flush an English toilet, kind of like jump-starting a Model T-Ford, you are risking your arm), and then you leave. Housekeeping comes a-knocking at 8:30 because you should already be out! You should be on the streets of Cambridge (which is where I am currently) and not in your hotel room, frittering away the hours in the English way (that was for the Pink Floyd fans…).

No, the modern world is to come over quickly, check in, walk the streets, take the photos, buy the postcard and coffee mug that says “Cambridge University” on it, and go home. In a weekend.

Antwerp at the time of Rubens, and largely BECAUSE of Rubens as I am learning more and more, was THE city. Sixteenth-century and Seventeenth-century Antwerp was a destination, and many of these painters and sculptors, if they were not born in Antwerp, came to it, and usually died there. Brussels, though close, was a major trip, and only a few went from Antwerp to Brussels, whereas today, a larger majority of people from Antwerp commute to Brussels, due to its seat as the capital of the EU. However, Antwerp is again becoming such a destination, despite its highly provincial politics.

But, every time I travel under the Chunnel, I am amazed at the ease, and it is such a jolt to hear English again all around me. I usually stutter for the first few times I speak here because I am always not sure if people will “understand” me. I am always surprised when they then answer me in English, not because of being smug to show that they know English, but because it is their mother tongue. This is not the first time I have written about this, and it won’t be the last, because it is something that jars my consciousness, and I feel the need to write about it. It is fresher on my mind because of what I am actually working on.

Although the streets of Cambridge are brimming with tourists, (something I just heard two locals complaining about at the table next to me, in fact), none of them, via London (only 45 minutes away), would take more than 36 hours to get anywhere in the world to get home if they needed to. This is not to say one is better than the other, but indeed, it is a different world. Likewise, I have met people from all around the world in Antwerp over the past few years, and we still have our differences, sometimes that are endearing, at other times hindering for getting to know people, but the awareness of the world is rather more mundane than the eccentric nature it seems to have had when travel was only for a select few. For better or for worse, I cannot say, but it does give me pause each time.

Cairns

Last week I was walking through the streets of Antwerp with a friend who has a very strong penchant and deep knowledge of gemstones. Now that sounds innocuous enough, but what it led to was a very eye-opening experience for me.

Why?

Because I thought I knew Antwerp rather well and am aware of many of the shops, boutiques, restaurants, art galleries, etc. But, what happened was that because of listening to someone else’s interest, we ended up going to a whole different Antwerp than I had been to, but all the while being exactly in the same Antwerp that I have always walked through.

In essence, I had been walking by some very fascinating shops for years and never going in, sometimes perhaps out of just habit of knowing my favorite places, or sometimes just not recognizing what is right in front of your eyes. It is the cliché of driving down a road and suddenly realizing you have gone a mile and don’t remember any of it because you always drive down that road and your “subconscious” driver takes over.

As such, throughout the day, little cairns of memories were placed along familiar routes, marking new places and points of interest that I will be sure to view next time and more importantly gave me the awareness to keep my eyes open for new ones.

Every city has multiple dimensions, layers upon layers, like a sedimentary rock, and as with Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge, it is for us to dig through and find the layers and be aware of the rifts. Many of us, myself included, merely walk along the surface each day, and yet, just below, there are new worlds to be discovered, or like the theoretical pocket universes that could be all around us, but we must be willing to look for them.

Whale Songs

Last night after I went to see a movie I came out into the frigid Antwerp, winter air to catch a bus back home, though I missed it by just a minute, and the next one was not for another twenty minutes. As it was well below freezing, I figured that walking along the bus route would be better than standing still at a single bus stop, so I set off. As I was at the Centraal train station, the bus route runs southerly down the spoorweg (tracks) of the trains. Centraal station is one of the most beautiful train stations in the world, and has many times over been voted as such. Though I know that there are many main world train stations I have not yet been to, of those dozens that I have (and several on the top 10 list), Antwerp’s definitely deserves such praise.

Inside, its main foyer is reminiscent of a large Baroque cathedral, though with a lofty domed ceiling, so, like much of Antwerp’s architecture, it is a mixture of aesthetics. The train galley itself is nothing short of stunning, with high, vaulted glass and steel walls and ceiling rising far above the trains, dwarfing them to look like toy trains a child might play with. The space is daunting even more so now that they opened up two lower layers to accommodate the high-speed trains on the lowest level and mid-city trains on the second, while the more regional ones are often on the top level, so as not having to travel underground for any period of time.  

Like many major train stations, it originally was a terminus, where all the trains had to stop, and then later reverse direction to depart. The two lower levels now make Antwerp a mere on/off place where trains traveling from Paris can merely stop, unload and then close the doors and continue on in the same direction towards Amsterdam, for example. However, the top level is still a terminus, with enormous shock absorbers at the end of each spoor (track) in case a train’s brakes are not sufficient to stop it, or perhaps a miscue by an engineer.

But, it is not just the inside of the train station that is so impressive. The entire structure has just completed a 15-year renovation on all levels, and that includes one of its most impressive features, the nearly two mile elevated stone structure that leads all departing tracks to Berchem station. For the entire length of this route, the elevated rail system is supported by a series of arches and is capped off with what looks almost like a fortress complete with small towers every some-odd meters. It is something very easy to take for granted on a daily basis, but when you really appreciate the vastness of this rail system, it is quite impressive.

As I was then walking along, just reaching the part where the trains come in, I heard the song of the rails. There have been lots of songs written about trains, mostly nostalgic, such as Steve Goodman's “City of New Orleans,” bemoaning the end of an era. However, the real music of trains is the trains themselves. I am glad that my daughter has had the chance to experience the enchantment of trains, and though they are no longer the old steam engines, every now and then, one will pull into Antwerp’s Centraal, and then one can really imagine the excitement and awe of a train. The blast from a steam-engine train at full throttle inside the station is one of the loudest things I have ever heard. That, too, is music, not just the pleasant clickity-clacks along the tracks. Also, the exhaustive decompression of the airbrakes from the hulking beasts, waiting their turn to get back on the way. The whistles of the conductors. The hissing of the hydraulics opening and closing the doors. The echoes of travelers, commuters, and vagabonds. The indecipherable blasts over the intercom of inevitable track changes. All of this is one big cacophonic masterpiece.

However, the one part of this music I love best is the haunting whale songs of the trains coming in, with their brakes grinding and when the metal on metal of the wheels to the tracks hits a certain frequency, you can imagine these trains singing like two giant blue whales under the ocean to each other. It is eerie, and on a night like last night, when the rails were very cold, and the trains coming in began the approach, this banshee-like baleen opera begins, and literally gave me chills, and that was not just the freezing wind at my back. The moans and groans of the friction were sublime.

It reminded me of the first time that I came to Antwerp over 20 years ago (actually, the second time, but the first time to live here). I was part of a European Studies program for languages and literature and I arrived early to check out the town. As I was not affiliated with a school at the time, I had to secure my own lodging for the year. I had booked myself into a youth hostel in the meantime while I was searching. Though called a youth hostel, it was actually more of a half-way house for Northern African Muslims from Morocco, Tunisia, Tangiers, Libya, and so forth. I am pretty sure I was about the only Westerner there that week. So, it was a bit of a shock to check in, and whenever I told people where I was staying, they looked at me as if I had lost my mind (I get that a lot).

To get there, I had to walk along this same track system. However, in 1992, no renovation had begun, and Antwerp was a bit more of a backwater, grimy port city than the world city it is again today. 500 years ago, Antwerp was THE city, but it fell to shambles for a couple hundred years. Regardless, it was pretty grimy and impressive not for its beauty, but for its decay along this mighty railroad. I was also staying on “the wrong side of the tracks.” It gave me an impression of Antwerp that most of the other students in the program never saw, and at present cannot see in that part of town. Yet, what remained the same, was I was just as transfixed by the sounds of the trains above me. So, much may change, but there is always something at the core in which the song does remain the same.

If Stones Could Speak

I have just finished a rather long and tedious move here within Antwerp to a new apartment, one closer to my daughter's new school and one that is bigger for her to have more of her own space when she is with me, which is important for a young child finding her way.

Although  have moved out of the famous Zurenborg neighborhood, epitomized by the Cogels-Osy Lei, and the community-driven Dageraadsplaats, both of which are dear to my heart and mind, I have gained things for other losses.

One of the best aspects of living where I do now is that I am nearly a stone's throw from the Middelheim sculpture "museum" and the Nachtegalen Park, where my daughter loves to go play after school. So, as with all things in life, when we lose something, there is a void, but as we also know, nature abhors a vacuum (as do cats...wait for it), so that void must be filled somehow. For me, this is a good way to fill a void, for it is a very peaceful place to go and walk and just let Time go by.

The first time that I went to Middelheim was exactly 20 years ago, almost to the date, when I was in a study abroad program at UFSIA (now part of the University of Antwerp). The coordinators of the program told us about it and as far as I know, not many others took them up on it. However, I went several times that year, during different seasons, and it was a very peaceful escape from the sometimes frenetic city center.

However, though the seasons changed, the statues did not. And, over the past 20 years, I have returned several times, and though I have changed, and the seasons, I still see the same, familiar faces, and of course the newer additions.

Twenty years down the road, it was a very special feeling to be there with my daughter again. We have been a few times before, but this time, it was in my neighborhood, and not merely a trip to the park as a destination, but was actually part of where I now live.

I wondered about those statues and all that they have "seen." How many others have gone there over the years, their lives moving ever towards the Autumn of our lives, and the statues stare mutely on at us.  What could they say, not changing, or at least at a much slower rate than we are, for of course, one day too they will "die." But, what would Rodin's mantled figure have to say to us who rush around all day, chasing our tails, only to wake up again the next day, one day older, and perhaps none the wiser?

A question of course with no answer. But as I was watching my daughter size up her photo of this same statue, I looked at it, and wondered what it was saying...perhaps, "I know you...you've been here before..." and like Shelley's Ozymandias, we shall all one day fall, but perhaps we can do so not in vain. 

Moving On Up, to the South Side...

Well, I’m moving again, though this time for positive reasons, meaning that I want to be closer to my daughter’s new school and to preserve the morning ritual of being close enough to ride the bike, or eventually bikes, down the tree-lined boulevard each morning, weather permitting, to drop her off. It is something that has become such an integral part of my life that I can’t imagine it otherwise.

Perhaps one of the greatest things for me living in Belgium is that, weather permitting, I do almost everything on the bike, and the most significant one of those things is that I take my daughter on the bike to school. At present, it is a good 5km/2 ½ mile ride and she is not exactly small anymore to be riding behind me like Rerun of the Peanuts comic series. But, the route we have to take is too dangerous and too long for her to be on her own, which will all change when I move to my new apartment.

Moving and switching schools is tough. And, I don’t think that anyone will disagree here, but, you know, life is tough.

But, like Roberto Benigni showed us, even in the most distressing, horrible and trying times, life can be “beautiful.” 

My life is beautiful. Tough, but beautiful.

Each day here in Belgium I am communicating in a language that is not my own, and one that is rapidly becoming second nature to me because of all that I have to deal with on a daily basis, and for the most part, I am alone. That is not a result of merely being an introvert, which I am, but also because of the social clime and norms here. An American in Antwerp in 2012 is not the same as Gershwin’s American in Paris in the 1920’s and 30’s. It is not Hemingway’s Time. It is Fact, not fiction, nor self-pity. Just the facts, mam, and those are they, as they stand. It is very hard to be here as an American cut adrift (partly self-inflicted, partly otherwise) and most ex-pats of this time will agree. Times have changed. The world has changed. Norms have changed. And, with them, I must change.

But, again, my life here is beautiful. Would I wish that things were different? In some instances a definitive “yes” is on the tip of my tongue, in others, a clarion bell of “nay” resonates quite soundly throughout my day’s thoughts.

I am moving soon away from the very neighborhood that brought me back to Antwerp, to Belgium, to Europe, that is Zurenborg, without a doubt, one of the most uniquely architectural wonders of Europe, and a true sense of community. I will miss it, I had a house here, a sense of place for a while, but again, Times change, and I will with them. I am moving to a new part of Antwerp-Berchem, one that is less urban, more sub-urban, but not without its own charms and more importantly, it has direct access to some stunning city parks, not to mention Europe’s second-largest outdoor sculpture garden of Middelheim, a treasure I was alerted to a quarter of a century ago as an exchange student, and a place that I have retreated to for solace in the intervening years.

Fall is coming to Belgium, which is a big change. Belgium is verdant to put it mildly, and when the fall comes, it comes with great fanfare that would rival the peeper tours of New England.

So, change is in the air, both physically and metaphysically as I am adjusting to new things, new environments, and new horizons. In the past two weeks, in Dutch I have bought a used car, rented a new apartment, joined a water polo team, helped integrate my amazing daughter into a new school, dealt with a myriad of financial, social, and logistical situations, and with the added benefit that now, no one really knows where I am from, meaning, I’ve lost my accent. Now, they are surprised when I say that I am American rather than assuming and switching to English.

Things have changed.

The Solvay Lining

Last week I went to the market to buy flowers, and well, let's just say it put me in a "something is rotten in the state of Belgium" kind of mood for a short time, and resulted in a post in like manner, more or less bemoaning my own state of being in Belgium.

However, if I have one quality that I can boast of, eventually, even when moving towards a negative slant, I am able to find the silver lining in the clouds, and to make the lemonade from the lemons. I have my maternal genetics to thank for that to be able to counter the tower of dour of my paternal genes, and the former have always triumphed, as they do now.

It is easy for one to get down on a country in which that person is the foreigner, lo straniero, l'étranger, de vreemdeling, and so on and so forth. Sometimes you are excused of certain social customs, but other times you are excluded from them, and both situations can call for a modicum of dis-ease or anxiety. You always feel that you are being watched, judged and at times ridiculed. Paranoia? If you have lived in such a scenario you would not say so. It exists. The paranoia comes into play about the extent that it is actually happening. It is happening, but often not as much as we feel it to be.

Finding the balance, then, as in all things is the key.

Finding the balance.

So, there are several things that are very "right" about Belgium, and I will take a moment to highlight them here, for, despite the incredibly small size of this country, western civilization has much to thank the Belgians for, again for better and for worse. Everything has it place, and time, and there have been many things that have happened in Belgium that have their place in history.

The Solvay Conferences

The two biggest of these were the 1911 and 1927 conferences funded by the Belgian Ernest Solvay, who is chiefly responsible for carbonated beverages, and had a list of attendees that has made every theoretical and experimental physicist drooling for decades. Here are some of the names for the 1927 conference: Schrödinger, Pauli, Heisenberg, Bohr, Born, Einstein, Dirac, Curie and Planck. The average IQ of that group just mentioned would be a Richter-scale event of any single group of minds coming together, and they were just part of it. It was at that fateful event that the (in)famous quip of Einstein made the record books for his attack against the randomness of Quantum Physics that "God does not play dice" to which, unbeknownst to most who know that quote, Bohr, the pre-eminent QP advocate answered, "Stop telling God what to do..." or along those lines. Neither has been definitely proven to be right or wrong, something I like to think of God's little joke or gentle reminder that no one knows everything all the time as I like to tell my daughter, meaning me so that she knows Papa's can have faults too.

Belgian Lace, Beer, Fries, and Cheese

For anyone who visits Belgium, you will most likely come across one or more of the above. The lacework of Belgium, specifically west Flanders is legendary. The comestibles and digestives of the latter hardly need mention except for the fact that what the world has erroneously known as "French Fries" (and for a god-forsaken time as "Freedom Fries") these are actually Belgian and there is a museum in Bruges to prove it, and the fact that the smelly "Limburger" cheeses in all of the Bugs Bunny type cartoons would be none other than the Belgian Limburger cheeses.

Music Festivals

Belgium, and specifically Flanders, is the proving and testing ground for bands around the world. Only Austin's SXSW could boast of having more direct influence on the make or break of a band. In addition, many of the world's most renowned DJs are, you guessed it, Belgian.

Movies

Look on IMDB. For some reason, nearly every major movie is released in Belgium first. It is kind of like the New Hampshire primaries. Actually, not kind of like, exactly like. Do the math.

Art

Okay, if Belgium has a corner on anything, it is art, and in a big way. Whether the Northern Renaissance is officially Belgian or Low Countries is a source of debate, but it is impossible to deny the talent that has come from this area: the Breughels, Van Eycks, Memling, Bosch and Magritte, to name but a very, very small number of monumentally important artists for their respective times. Without a doubt the latter two have been huge influences in my own life with regards to thinking about the relationships between art and life (as Bosch was for Henry Miller, inter alia), but I cannot imagine my own artistic world view without each and every one of these. Ceci, n'est pas une pipe...Derrida would have never existed without this one. Think about that for a moment and let it disseminate.

There are many, many more things. I never live in a place to which I am not drawn to for a variety of reasons. I will, never, and I mean NEVER be drawn to Belgian folk music with the accordion and whatnot, but there are many reasons that I realize why I am here, and the various paths that lead to the doorstep that I walk out of each morning.

I do fully embrace my charge as a Fulbright to be an ambassador of goodwill both to my home country and those others that I live in.

However, we can be human, well, we are human, and with being human comes being human.

And, BTW, here are this week's spoils from the Market.