> and my desktop shows it to be half past six here in amsterdam so I guess
> I should be heading the STEIM to the Free Media Cafe. wonder if i'll
it sure was interesting.
biking through the town full
of energy i arrived at steim.
there were a couple of people
banging the door. no one came
to open but then one window
upstairs opened and joel was
there.
he told that the others had gone
to eat something somewhere so we
could join them or he could let
us to wait inside.
joel came down, let this one
japanese/chinese guy with some
instrument he was going to play
in, the other guy went to look
for the others in the restaurant
and i staid there talking with
joel.
he was waiting for someone to
come to eat and then they were
going to a concert afterwards.
only that it was a bit weird as
the person he was waiting for
was late and hadn't called or
anything like he usually does.
we went inside, he continued cooking
some interesting looking indonesian
stuff. we were talking about the food
a while. it was some funny red rice,
small mushrooms and those other bigger
white ones that are almost like meet.
he started talking about programming.
telling really interesting stories about
different weird languages he had been using
during the years and about the people and stories
behind them.
i never realized that music could be so much programming.
he soon realized that programming was not something i was, or at
least had been, too interested lately. at the moment i'm still not sure.
i write too much and it is often not that good for anything.
anyhow the talk kept on going. as i think i mentioned he
had been reading me a lot lately, just the same day,
and we had been e-mailing each other all kinds
of stuff so it was nice and easy to continue
with the same discussions as we were eating.
food was good. at one point he mentioned
the number "42", as some kind of random
thing. i don't remember what the talk
was then but i of course reacted
asking him if he knew what the
number ment. after reminding
him a couple of times about
douglas adams' meaning of
life stuff he remembered
and i could continue to
the net side and tell
him all about the #42
legend which i'm not
going to repeat here now.
after a while the friend called.
sounded like (s)he had been lost or
something. they agreed on a meeting on leidseplein
close to paradiso where they were heading for the concert
in ten minutes. still we kept on talking constantly about all
different things we had been wondering together or otherwise and i guess
i took us almost ten minutes to leave the apartment. i went downstairs
to join the free media cafe and he headed to town.
the program in the cafe had started already
so i arrived a bit late like usually.
there was some video playing,
like usually. i don't
remember what it was
but many familiar
people were around:
anna from new zealand was sitting close to the door,
aurora who's working there was just next to me, she's from new york
and a lot of [tuttuja] faces were sitting and watching.
after the video there was quite exciting music,
some kind of experimenal thing with really
controversial different things going on
at the same time. it was three women
playing saxophone, cello and keyboard plus
from time to time some sound from the tapes that
the technical boys always play from the back of the room.
after the music there was some trouble with the next part so
they announced a short break and everybody went to take
a beer or something and talk. anna had been
to the party last weekend so we talked
some of that and it appeared that
the people i'd been spending the
sunday with on the boat were
her close friends, what a
small world and then she
also told that she's
really going to japan like we had been
talking before and there was this guy from tokio
standing next to us, we were talking a while and he told me that
he was going to show one of his videos in the next part and had been
working on a movie script now, for a real 120min movie with seven
actors in the main roles they were going to shoot in europe
perhaps in hamburg-rotterdam-london. sounded like a huge
project and he told it was quite interesting as he
had done nothing like that before. we
also noticed this funny guy with
rubber, red in legs, yellow in
his arms like an extra skin
and were wondering about him .. i was laughing
and telling how good something like that would be for playing in snow.
(i guess i remembered still what i'd been talking and writing that day)
then we went back in as the program continued.
first there was a woman singing.
it was quite sensitive. a bit
weird i don't know why.
she didn't cry or anything, though.
then there was the video from the japanese guy. the name
was in japanese so he shouted the translation: "that means
snow playfulness". crowd asked "what?". he repeated, more clearly
this time: "snow playfulness".
i was wondering if that was it's really said in english but
thought that he should know as he had described himself as a real
eastern cost guy, being living in new york for several years and all
and as the video was made '93 or something he's probably learned
the right english expression somwhere. it was
really minimalistic, just showing the snow
in black and with, panning to different
directions quite peacefully but still
in some sort of catching way. i was wondering
all the time if it really was snow or the skin of a human body
and the whole thing reminded me of how the english pacient starts
with the desert pictures and later with people
but the soundscape and the whole mood was of course totally
different. i asked him after those four minutes and it really
was snow all the time, also the sounds, he had been skiing in the alps.
i mentioned how funny it was that i'd just been wondering about snow play
in the hall some minutes ago and the tokyo-going new zealander anna
hit me complaining how she only dreams about snow as we seem
to do nothing but play in it.
there was also some old fascinating polish animation,
really in that nice old eastern european way, really clever
and some other video about a girl living in her bed, that was okay.
soon it was over and we got back to our discussions.
after a while this red haired boy came and i guessed that it was
this dancer who had been talking with joel and had e-mailed me the
day before about net-body-screen relationships. then i had
been happy to have a drawing called that as an answer
to show him right away and he had been also reading
some other an-stuff so as i've been so into dance myself
but have never actually done it in any of the senses that those people do
i was really looking forward to talking with him.
we were both a bit tired after working all they and coming to
the event afterwards so the talk didn't go that fluently all the time
and occasionally we had trouble to understand each other but we did
address many interesting things and at least i solved many of those
that had been troubling me for some time and could answer his
questions so that i think that he was satisfied in the same
way too. he asked quite a lot of basic things about teleprecense
related things and if i had any friends i'd never seen etc. but a lot
of it went quite far already in the beginning so i was again
a bit more confident about what i had been saying about
net supporting real life discussions before. he is
also doing material for steim web pages which is
of course really interesting.
aurora also introduced me to nico who i had called before.
he was tired and busy so we didn't talk much. also we still don't
know anything about each other so perhaps it would've not been
that necessary anyway. he asked me to send him mail and
i guess i will soon.
i also talked to the rubber skin guy since skin colouring has
been fascinating me already years now - that seemed like a
nice way of doing it. he was really a funny guy.
people were closing the place and going home so we went out.
this some musician who i'd met before the one month ago when
i met joel and the others for the first time wanted to change
addresses, don't know what he's thinking but it i felt good
about it.
so we were out again. and, again, joel was up there in his
apartment, opened the window and there were shouting just
like a couple of hours earlier. he said he had thought that
everybody was gone already so they had gone up to eat (again!)
when they had returned from the concert.
suddenly i realised who the other person was. it was the guy
who had been in rotterdam the night i got mugged on the street
and who i had been talking to after returning from the police
stationg to the theatre were steim people were performing. he
had talked wonderfully about it then telling how he had felt
when he had been robbed in amsterdam some time before and i had
been writing about it afterwards for the people back home in
finland. i knew i wanted to go up so i was really happy when
joel asked me to come up for a beer and perhaps to eat something.
once again i got to joke about how we finns drink and so joel
had to count how many beers they had and it was not before he
mentioned the tequila bottle when i was climbing the stairs ..
altough i had first explained that i really don't drink like
i used to, and like many other my friends up north do, anymore.
i loved to be up there again. joel, who of course didn't know
that i had met dirk before, started to introduce us and was
surprised when we already knew each other. i was joking like
it was not dirk, not joel (or the drinks and food) that got
me up there again. i explained them colourfully how i'd written
about the evening and the ultimately shy dirk almost blushed
when i told him how important his being and words had been me
that night. then i also recalled how most of what my friends
from finland had been telling after they had read the text was
about the part describing the feelings i had of that violence
and helplessness and it was just that part where i had let
dirk's words speak out the feelings we shared that night.
the next three, four hours passed sipping the beers and talking
about everything, mostly music and world i guess. and girlfriends.
it was dirk's birthday and he had a wonderful sacher cake with
him which we enjoyed greatly before changing to the tequila. we
talked so much that there's not really chance to recall it and
i guess not really a purpose either. at some point we watched
some video clips and then, finally, listened to some music.
that it was i'm doing now. bored of writing, loads of work, late
from deadlines and tired but well and happy. listening to music.
from the net. being on-line, but leaving soon.