8th, Utrecht. Match report.

It wasn’t a terrible day, but in retrospect I’d have spent it differently, and this is a learning that I’ll take into foresight.  Ideally it would have gone like this:  hopping on to a neon green Flexibus with 100 other visible minorities at 11 am, I’d gently recline my chair and have a three hour reading session of Geert.  I don’t think there’d have been a gas station stop, but if there was I’d take the obligatory piss and then eat the healthy snacks that I packed.  Once at the Dusseldorf bus station, I’d bid adieu to the migrants and stretch my legs with a long walk around the city center where I’m certain I’d find a church and a  square.  The difference in meat quality between Netherlands and Germany is so stark, perhaps not in actual quality, but at least taste, that I’d have had to oblige with a wurst of some sort.  Finding a high quality cafe and pastry would’ve been next on the agenda, with another couple of hours dedicated to Mak, before starting the 8 kilometer walk to the stadium on the outskirts of the city.  And to continue with the fantasy, the cocky Jude Bellingham would have torn his ACL in a 4-0 hammering by the Swiss.  Running back to the city center afterwards, I’d have hopped on the ICE train, taking me directly to Utrecht at 200 km/hour while reading some more, or perhaps even while typing up this match report, arriving before midnight and hopping into bed.  

Instead it went something like this.  At 1:30 pm I left the house to cycle to a colleague’s place, some twenty minutes away.  He’d be driving myself and three others the two hundred odd kilometers to Dusseldorf airport.  The 2:00 pm departure time got delayed until 2:30 pm, waiting for another colleague with some awkward chit chat, a nice precursor to the 3 hours of even more awkward chit chat that would ensue during the ride.  Well I don’t even know if one could call it awkward chit chat, but it’s certainly not a chit chat I’d like to actually engage in, at least not on the weekend.  The chit chat that I do at lunch, well, I take that as part of the employment contract.  Yes I sound like a pompous asshole, but surely you know what I”m talking about?  I mean I have nothing against these people, and their lives are a hundred times more interesting than mine, but there is something forced about it?  At one point in the future I may hang out with them on my own terms, but even then, there’s something in the air, isn’t there?  To make matters worse, the previous evening we had a team event, so all the safe bases of conversations had been already covered.  The best I could do then was asking my colleagues to my left and right innocuous questions, since I’m way below par on making the wisecracks to the amusement of the entire group, which entails some playful teasing about work ethic, drinking habits or lack of exercise.  At my 43 years, half of which have been spent in this environment, I’m still terrified of that fine line of being funny and crossing the line.  So I stay quiet.  Anyways, back in the car, we do the usual rounds, some observations here and there, some preamble about the game.  I’m fairly certain I divulge too much about my job and negative feelings toward it, I compare it with my previous employer to an extent that I”m certain even though we are on good terms, next week the main topic of office gossip – which by the way seems to be what, half of what it means to be involved in corporate life? – will be that ‘he always talks about adidas’, or maybe even worse, the boss finds out that I’m jerking off on company time.  But fuck it, I’m beyond really giving a shit about all that, I really am.  I don’t work hard and I’m awkward in the corporate setting.  Do with me what you will, so long as you pay me.  Somehow we manage to fill this time with all the pleasantries, and miraculously we encounter zero traffic.  The shuttle bus from the airport that I dreaded, was also pleasantly empty, even though if that meant more chit chat ensued.  I was being shown my colleagues new dietary restrictions.  Man, I sound like a fucking asshole, but you must know what I mean?  I could genuinely envision these people becoming friends at some point, but until then, it all seemed tedious.  And they must have had the same thoughts about me as I dwelled for the fiftieth time about how hard being a parent to a toddler is.  In my mind I”m still only working here for less than ten more months, so there’s also that.  We whizzed through security and quickly found the sanctuary of our seats, with fifteen minutes to spare before kickoff.  Our seats were the first row of the upper ring, right next to the media section and I thought if one day you and I could sit there writing up our match reports. On the far right corner, throngs of Swiss supporters, while on our left side behind the goal the English fans had aggregated.  Despite the atmosphere, I still failed to be excited.  A 3rd division Dutch team could have been fielded and I don’t think that I would have been able to tell the difference.  Bellingham and even Xhaka have been thrown in to the Ballon D’Or hat this year, and aside from a pirouette, I failed to see the quality.  It’s true what they say, Bellingham is all English media hype.  The first half was absolutely dire, I hope that you didn’t waste your time watching it, as for me, I had no choice.  Thankfully the second half, there were a couple of goals, though it wasn’t enough to garner my interest.  Instead what was occurring in the stands below was far more riveting.  From my vantage point I could see that after the England goal, one of your typical British fans – bucket hat and a beer belly thirty years in the making ran down to strike a Swiss supporter in the face.  I didn’t catch the actual punch, but I saw the melee that ensued.  The fat barbarian returned to his seat while the Swiss friends were furious and appealed to the ushers to get this fat fuck outta here, which isn’t as easy as it seems.  I’ve been exposed to some real corporate mastermind over the years, real strategic thinkers (blue laces in Asia, or white?) but here in this situation, some real tactics would have to be imposed to execute the removal of this fat fuck, his son, and other friend, who was also donned a bucket hat a beer belly.  First of all, you can’t physically remove the man – he outweighed everyone by tens of kilos, and you could stick a few guys on him, but then you risk escalating the situation since you could easily envision the other inebriated Brits, in all their Brexit fervor, come to the aid of their national pride and joy lads.  And well, you can’t just up and ask them to leave nicely, can you?  So what do you do?  You can’t really let them stay, even though Switzerland is neutral, this act of violence surely violated some convention.  The Swiss guys were pleading with the ushers, and I saw several old men in suits try to calm them.  Eventually one young pretty stewardess showed up with an ice pack, in hopes of calming the situation, but they went on, and rightly so.  Eventually I saw one brusk man in a suit arrive, probably the top security man in the building, and the only one who so far looked to be able to match the fat Brit in might, and even with him I could detect a ‘what the fuck are we gonna do’ look in his eyes.  Eventually more and more men arrived with earpieces, clearly a strategy was to be deployed, leaving me sweating in my seat.  To be fair I had seen some English supporters go to the Swiss guys in an act of goodwill, shaking hands and hugging it out, but the situation was close to detonating into absolute pandemonium, which was more than I could say about the match.  We’re deep into extra time when I see four fluorescent vested volunteers arrive to the scene, they very well could’ve been on my same fantasy Flexibus trip since they were all visible minorities and looked to be no more than twenty five years old.  The weight of the them combined could not have been greater than the great British fuckhead.  A real interesting choice of tactics from security, I’d had gone with more braun and muscle, maybe a weapon or two, sedative darts crossed my mind.  Instead they went with the weak, feeble and dispensable.  To my surprise, the big fat fuck, his friend, and son left with a whimper.  There must have been some secret police at the ready in case all hell broke loose, instead, after the volunteer asked them to leave, they did.  You may be surprised to read that this gentle soul, if asked as part of a jury, would yell a resounding yay, as opposed to nay, to have all three punished severely.  Is it twisted to think of them inside a cage, with three lions, for some comedic effect?  All this brouhaha ensued for the majority of extra time, thankfully, since the game itself continued to be a stalemate.  The penalty kicks were equally as uneventful, as far as penalties go.  We left the stadium but not before coming across a teenage girl who must have missed the final whistle of the match because she kept incessantly yelling Come on England.  All small talk had been exhausted, and we’d all been exhausted of each other, the fans, and the overhyped billing of a game of football.  Back at the airport, a single kiosk was open to serve us over priced focaccia and luke warm sparkling water.  The ride back was long, thankfully mostly silent, and I can’t have been the only one to regret the decision of that day to go watch the beautiful game.

9th, Utrecht

Beautiful game, I meant to sign off by saying the ‘so called beautiful game’.  It’s official, that at least for the time being, my interest in the sport has floundered.  Perhaps I need my Dad around to spark some interest, perhaps I need Milo to be old enough to at least cheer for a colour.  In the scope of writing, I feel most of our football related content waxes poetic about the past.  So maybe a hiatus is needed.  No H&A 2026 edition.  The football was a pretense for writing, and a marketing hook.  I feel much more able and willing to write about books, for instance.  Is there a market for that?  Do you or I care?  My random thoughts coming to you live and direct from the second floor of the library.  And since I brought it up, the Geert Mak is weighing on me.  Already my thoughts are brewing for the review, and the spoiler for you is that it’ll be negative.  This morning I spent a good hour reading in front of the laptop.  There are rail works on the track between Utrecht and Amersfoort which means that everyone lays claim to the commute taking too long, everyone is at home, presumably reading, cooking, doing laundry, or sleeping.  60% in and I can already safely tell you to skip this one.

But back to Saturday, if I could do it again, I mean have a free pass from the Queen of the house to be released from my domestic duties at noon, and not having to work, or sit in front of the laptop under the pretense of work, then I’d do this – backtracking on my idea to take the bus, I’d skip all the football shenanigans entirely.  I’d go for a nice trail run with a few people, nothing too crazy, but enough to know that after recovery I’d be that little fraction stronger and then hit the cafes.  Three or four even, at times listening to music, at times reading, I’d even meet an acquaintance at one to tick the socializing box.  In between, there should be a nap, nothing extravagant, a blanket in the park would suffice.  To nourish my famished muscles I’d eat something cliche like a steak.  In the evening I’d take out the laptop and write in a quiet place.   This, this would nourish my soul.  

So, here we are.  If books don’t suit you, and if you’re not feeling sanguine about the football, then it’s only logical and rational that we turn to product reviews.  I have been browsing the Altra Lone Peak 8 for days – not that I have any need for a new pair of shoes – and I’d love to hear some more about them.

July 10, Seoul

July well on its way. Unremarkable as any a summer month so far. Hot, humid and rain. I don’t shy away from the outdoors but with lots of homework and two whizzing fans in the house, I’ve been inside more than otherwise. Just as you I missed most of the Euros and wasn’t the least troubled by that. As you say, it’s but the memories of football days past that we are drawn to, that we keep gnawing on as dogs on bones. I just watched Lamine Yamal, a 16-year old, curve his country into the top corner of the European cup, a special one objectively, and there was all but a little twinkle of emotion running down my spine. Football is a different game today. It’s dead I’m afraid. Memories and photographs. It’s buried under Saudi sand by Bangladeshi hands, paid for by Swiss accounts, monitored by all the world’s gossip-ridden tabloids.

With the mother country winning there games though, I’m faced with the stressful matter of holding opposing stances. Not watching but watching. Friends and family back home, hopefully not dressed in orange, in bars and on couches. The notion of watching the game at the same time and having similar emotions, is hard to ignore. I’m not yet ready to give up my Dutch passport. The alarm will therefore ring at 3:55. I’ll stumble to the toilet, then shuffle back to the sofa and will switch on the game. No sound, Inyoung’s vast asleep, a good reason to read some more of Labatut with the screen flickering in the background.

I’ve been reading quite a few pages the last two days and have found my way with the algebraic slang, progressing rapidly. If the game turns out boring and extended into overtime, I wouldn’t be surprised if I finish the book by tomorrow end of day. You mentioned it would take a few weeks, so I guess you are yet to start reading it. Whether still to start or already in progress doesn’t matter, let me pose a question that arose today during a metro ride. A question I’d like you to answer without hurry but ask yourself while reading The Maniac, without pretending to be negligent of the cause: Could you square sound ethics with working for the Manhattan Project? And if so, would you be afraid of potential feelings of guilt showing at your doorstep on an undetermined moment in the future? And if not, where do the scales tip over? We both worked for a company that is a destructive beast in many more ways than one. Not destructive on an atomic bomb scale but still, not very kind to anything that can’t have /// printed on its surface. Picture a blue whale surfacing to catch a breath, then diving to the deep again but not before boasting the /// on its tail-fin. Where would the scales tip Jack? What’s acceptable for the cash, what’s acceptable for the fame, for the career, for the technological progress, for power, for the nation. I’m curious.

As for the other question I wanted to ask, and you may ignore this one, but it came from your recommendation to read Zweig’s chess book, which was great! I read the second part of the story twice as the description of the time in lock-up is so vivid. The notion that one starts building a world of imaginary chess so lucid. Didn’t all kids play against themselves, the imaginary counterpart? When friends let you down for an afternoon, or during the hours your parents expect you to do ‘more important’ things, but all you want is continue the game you were playing together. In the beginning it sucked, the game is not the game if you pretend to be two players. But then, as you bend the rules a little, the game starts becoming playable by one, you’re back where you said your goodbyes, even a few minutes before that and the tension starts rising. You shuffle the deck once more, you no longer have to explain castling, and all of a sudden that useless fence in the garden becomes your own La Bombonera. So what character on the chess board do you liken yourself to? Again, a great read, thanks for the recommendation.

We were at the gate of a Delta flight to New York. A city trip with the family, my dad, stepmom, sister and stepsister. My first time New York. Boarding is about to start when one of the staff members addresses us over the intercom, three chairs are overbooked and whether someone is interested to forfeit their chair in exchange for a handful of cash and a flight an hour and a half later. I want to jump at the occasion, not just for the cash (also!) but especially because it will free me from all the social obligation with my family aboard the flight. I like to travel alone. Ten minutes on a Seoul metro, ten hours on an intercontinental flight, thirty hours on an Indian train. If I can have my go, then preferably solo. No need for small talk if I don’t want to, eat and drink at my own time, sleep, nod, music, nothing, anything according to the director’s own wishes. So do I understand the sentiment you’re broadcasting from the backseat of your colleague’s car? All too well my friend, all too well. I wasn’t even there and it still holds a choke to my neck. The anguish of hours and hours of conversation you don’t want to have because you had that conversation already. With them, but worse, it’s an interchangeable chat with similarly interchangeable colleagues. And after all those hours, there’s still the game too. And the same ride back.

Today I learned the Korean grammar rule used when speaking of behaviour performed as a lie. A white lie usually, but still a lie. I saw a colleague waiting for the same train but pretended to be reading a book. A very useful grammar rule. Had colleagues asked me for a trip to Germany, apart from a simple ‘no, thanks’, I’m sure I would have entertained the idea of coming up with a long lost nephew living in eastern Netherlands whom I had to visit urgently, so yes, I’d love to join, but could we meet at the stadium. Oh and by the way, if we’re there anyway, I may as well stay the night to visit that one famous museum.

I wasn’t assertive enough that day and instead of simply raising my hand at the question, I dropped it with my family. ‘It couldn’t hurt for me to take that cash and later flight, right? Dinner’s on me tonight!’ My sister went absolutely ballistic. ‘Didn’t I appreciate the concept of family, and the Dutch saying ‘samen uit, samen thuis’?!’ And ‘of course none of us is taking another flight’. It took a few days to have the balance repaired.

The Lone Peaks, you say. Only raving reviews from my end! For walking and hiking that is. Not for running. I wear them all the time. Street, mountain, day, night. Get yourself a pair. Please consider using this affiliated Amazon link and don’t forget to review our blog site afterwards. Like, subscribe, and do share with your social network. With all your acquaintances.

You mention meeting an acquaintance in your ideal day schedule. Now there’s an English language nuance that I don’t completely understand yet. On a scale from close friend to random stranger, where is the acquaintance? My best guess would be the acquaintance is a known person who hasn’t achieved friend-dom yet. Given that you are adding said role to the perfect day, I wonder if acquaintance and friend are almost equal to the native English speakers? Or my understanding is correct, but instead of the normal friend-seeing-friend you hold a rare but (of course) acceptable worldview where you prefer to meet with people you don’t know as well. Maybe you like to avoid too personal conversations on the perfected day. The Dutch has a differentiation between vriend and kennis, the latter literally meaning a known person.

July ten is closing with a shortribs grill dinner with an uncle and aunt from the in-law family. I’ll try not to drink alcohol with uncle, but may lack the will and be defeated by the social obligation opposed on us towards our Korean elders. Drink or no drink, the bell is ringing at 3.55 tomorrow morning.

10th, Utrecht

Where’d the morning go?  I could’ve done so much, it feels, and in the end all I can say I really did was make a smoothie and lunch.  There was a fifteen minute daily catch up where we talked about the football game, there was thirty minutes of looking at a contract and then filling in a spreadsheet, and the rest?  Reading headlines, a chit chat here or there, highlights from yesterday, and that’s all I have to show for it.  I feel if I could be more disciplined in time management, I could accomplish more.  But I don’t do that when I’m ‘on the clock’, because even though I do cook a lunch, penciling in one hour for trumpet somehow feels wrong.  This mindset has to change.  It brings me to your question.  Actually before getting to it, let me say it was a pleasure to read your post again, and even more so to know I have a brother in arms against colleague-speak.  To the question, I’ll be fairly blunt and pass over any philosophical musings.  I’d have no problem working on something that wipes out a good portion of the population or that causes an ecological disaster, anything so long as I am compensated adequately.  Which is, as you say, more or less what I’m doing now, there are simply some degrees of separation that allow me to sleep gently.  Let us for a moment assume that I didn’t have the capitalist fear programmed in my brain, that I came from a state that actually cared for their citizens, or that I came from a family with immense wealth.  Then, would I work on that project?  FYI –  I wouldn’t work for /// in that scenario, but that can’t be certain; plenty of rich folk to be found there serving their ego and maybe I’m no different.  I cannot recollect if the Manhattan Project was framed in a way to succeed in being the best sports brand in the world, uh, I mean making scientific progress, or the race really was to make an atomic bomb to annihilate the enemy and future ones.  I imagine there was a great deal of this rhetoric at the time, and seeing as I’m a sucker for all kinds of dogma, I’d probably have taken the bait and imagined myself to be doing it for freedom, the civilian casualties being collateral damage.  You could likely live a whole lifetime believing that, heck, maybe even being regarded as a national hero.  

Which leads me to your next question, and the answer by now should be obvious.  It’s with no shame that I view myself as merely a pawn.  I’m a pawn at work, there’s no fucking doubt about that, I’m a pawn in the system.  I make a little bit of money and with that I feed the machine, void of meaning, I simply execute.  Yes, I’m a pawn in life.  All I can do from this low rank is criticize the King and the Queen, admire the Rook, Bishop and Knight, and trudge on forward as a sacrifice, likely to be felled by another meaningless pawn.  By the way, do you know a good career coach?

I suppose I used the word acquaintance as a consequence of the weekend and of my current circumstance.  I daresay that in Utrecht I am bereft of friends, and currently all I have are acquaintances.  People that I don’t mind meeting for a coffee, going for a run with, a picnic in the park.  When the shit hits the fan however, a phone call to these people would be met with scrutiny and I’m not sure they’d come through.   The friends are either back home in the suburbs, Tampere or Seoul.  They can also be found a little more locally in Haarlem, Maastricht and Den Haag, but asking them to come down for an hour long coffee is a stretch.  Mind you, real friends, if and when I can meet, then I will gladly spend a whole day.  Would you believe that I have a friend, or acquaintance now, from Canada living in Nijmegen?  There’s been a gradual ease into the acquaintance territory for the last few years.  He’s someone who before I may have considered my best friend, and now, with a bit of regret I call him an acquaintance with whom I exchange a couple of memes occasionally, and we try to meet, however that is becoming less and less frequent.  REcently, on the times we did meet, I noticed that all we had to talk about was the past, our friends from the past, that time we did that one funny thing.  I suppose that’s not enough for a friendship to go by on.  Kind of like football, I suppose, one needs to be in the moment, watch the Euros, put some effort in, wake up at an ungodly hour and be there.

You? A rook with a conscience?

July 14, Seoul

A rook with a conscience. It made me chuckle. A bishop with a morning mood. A pawn who’s not really hungry but could snack a little. I don’t know. Answering the question shows how ridiculous it is. So many interesting thoughts to share, ideas to pose and I ask this question. I’d be a knight but only for the oddness of its moves. I don’t do one direction very well. Probably a pawn too. Its irrelevance appeals. Of him there are plenty more, one can be part of the game but be completely overlooked. Utterly replaceable.

The Maniac read like a breeze. I’ll give it three-and-a-half stars but am careful to give too much away as I assume you are still reading it or maybe even to start it.

We had drinks with one of Inyoung’s male friends who has become a close friend of mine too over the past few years. Sometimes I wonder why. We are very different. His English is very basic at best, we converse in broken Korean or through Inyoung if need be. Not the most solid base for a friendship. I’ve been deliberating asking him for a bite with just us two but have been putting it off for the reasons of potential awkwardness and also the possibility of stepping on my wife’s toes. He expressed to Inyoung a few weeks ago the wish to ask me to go on a trip abroad with me, just him and me. The request hasn’t come to fruition. That’s a reason for relief as I’ll probably gracefully decline. Again, awkward. But also, of all places, he wants to go to Dubai with me. Koreans don’t get as generous amounts of time off as Europeans, they’re more on the US scheme of things and therefore make quick, broad trips abroad if they can afford them. A few days to Vietnam, a long weekend’s city trip, or, true luxury, ten days to ‘Europe’. Compressing four, five European countries in a pressure cooker of guided tours, airplane hop-overs, and quick-and-dirty bucketlisting. Dubai seems to be a modern status thing, a trend for the nouveau riche, just as it is in Europe. I dread the idea of having to spend a minute of my life there, even if for a stopover in the airport. I’ve done said stopover four times in the past on Netherlands-India connections, and those made for some of the most atrocious hours of my life. Had I been writing at the time, it would have made for a few fantastic pages, but unfortunately I did not.

Right, we met the friend for drinks. First a Chinese restaurant where Inyoung wanted to go for its pork belly. A treat that requires reservation days before as the meat requires hours of…roasting I guess. I forgot to ask. Pork belly flushed down with Tsingtao beers. Steamed paksoi on the side. Another pork dish on the side, marinated in a sauce in which I recognised the sauce used for the baby squid dish served in the neighbouring restaurant. We moved to John & Mark around the corner. Not the gay couple your parents befriended and you meet every year for Thanksgiving dinner, but a pair of males operating a quality rice wine bar. Lots of wood, Korean fancy but with a touch of Austrian mountain stube. After a brief wait outside, we drank a makgeolli made with Korea’s five flavoured berry. Delicious. We ordered a dry rice wine after which went down too easily as well, all the while nibbling off a huge wooden board filled with Korean egg-fried snacks. John or Mark, I didn’t ask, came down to ask us to try some of their new, yet unnamed produce. Too sweet the two Koreans in my company judged. Sweet but not too for me, therewith deciding unanimously I was to finish the bottle.

Regrets there were a few yesterday morning. It took hours of chugging water and brewing coffee, eating toast and peaches to get me back to presentable shape. All the while I made faint attempts at doing homework but whereas language skills seem to increase hand-in-hand along with alcohol absorption, parabolically, it also seems to deteriorate while curing the old limbs of a hangover, as were the words seeping out along with sweat. An alcohol withdrawal seemed the appropriate moment to read Amy Liptrot’s The Outrun. I’ve read a few reviews praising her memoir on alcohol addiction and moving back from London to the remote Orkney Islands. A place I’ve been wanting to visit for long but one that’s been limited to book experiences so far.

Should the question be ‘what makes a friend end up in that part of the world’ or ‘what makes you befriend a Tamperean’? Did you ever visit your friend in Tampere? I have some of my fondest travel memories of spending months in Finland. An incomprehensibly beautiful country first and foremost but also some of the friendliest people. I was warned with all this ‘Fins are shut’ and ‘Fins are gloomy’ nonsense, thinking I would not be able to connect with anyone there, but nothing could be further from the true. People offering their couches to sleep on without hesitation, naked sauna sits with people I had only acquainted for an hour, long nights of beer and deep conversation in forest huts. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve met another nationality folk who opened up faster than the Fins. If you haven’t been to Tampere yet, you definitely should. Autumn months. Rent a car and drive around. Maybe your friend owns a mökki or knows someone who does. A lakeside hut, a sauna, lots of books obviously, a game of chess, simple dinners. Bread. Berries. Beers.

July 16th, undisclosed location

Psst.  From the jail cell.  There’s nothing to do.  The same as yesterday.  Something prevents me from full blown writing, however.  If I was home, right now I’d be reading or trumpeting.  Still with Geert, by the way.  I’m not sure how I feel about your 3.5 rating of The Maniac.  Less enthusiastic about the 4 point whatever on GR.  Shit, now I know why I don’t go all out.  It’s the tapping of the keys.  The warden would clue in that I’m not working in excel, powerpoint or SAP.  It’s obvious to my two cellmates that I’m not working, and I think they are thinking to whom am I writing?  What is he writing?  Before labeling me as a freeloader, you must know that I have offered my services – can I help them?  Can they show me how to do this meaningless task?  And basically they’ve told me to chill.  Now here’s the interesting thing, just as my tapping conspicuously gives me away, so does their silence.  It’s obvious to me that they’re looking at their phones – I mean, it’s not as if they are concentrating on reading some work related document or cracking some excel code.  The other day, I may have overplayed my hand.  I had called the warden himself, because I wasn’t doing too much the entire day, and I wasn’t going to straight out ask for more work, but I wanted to let him know that the slacking I was partaking in was not conceived out of my own unwillingness to work, it was because there was no work.  And the implicit message that I wished to send was that I was doing nothing, and I was feeling damn fine doing nothing, as long as he was fine that I was doing nothing.  He may have misinterpreted this as some kind of eagerness, perhaps a flash back to my go-getter attitude during the interview, resulting in him asking if I wanted to go to Herzo.  Thankfully I think he already forgot.  The chasm between the warden and prisoners is monumental, even in the so-called non-hierarchical Netherlands.  But I’m fine with it.  There’s nothing he could teach me, or at least nothing that I have the slightest interest in.  I’m just here to serve my sentence, and then when I’m free I promise to myself to never waste another second of life.  

I want to break free, I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You’re so self-satisfied I don’t need you
I’ve got to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free

July 18, Seoul

Last night I finished Amy Liptrot’s booze detox and Orkney recluse memoir and reconsidered my Maniac stars. These books are by no means related, in fact they couldn’t be much further apart, and The Outrun is not the best memoir I ever read either, but what it did though, and apparently sometimes my reading focus is a little blurred, a speck of dust on the lens, it showed me why writing is a craft. The connections made by Labatut, the subjects too, make for an easy airport book catch and a breezy read, but all in all there’s not much writing going on. An almost non-fictional memorandum of accounts made into a catchy novel. Reading my notes again, I’d like to downgrade my star-rating to 2-2.5 stars. Watching the popular Oppenheimer movie, of which I’m not sure if I like it as much as popular opinion, one thing that struck was the image of self-reflection. A thing The Maniac lacks entirely. We’re hearing Johnny Neumann’s friends and family, we never hear the guy himself. Also, can someone run a word count on ‘genius’? The value of the word deflated substantially by the amounts used. Yes, I enjoyed reading it for the knowledge provided, the Lee Sedol bit a strong way to close the book, I can see how it’s a popular read that easily makes its way into top-ten lists, but I’m parking Labatut for now.

This week rain turned into torrential rain. Over the weekend the southern parts of the country suffered, flooding, unhousing, missing people. Yesterday its focus turned north, our house now also in scope. Peripheral but still. The city has all its weather alarms rung, all access to waterways is closed as the river and the streams are flooding while trying to cope with massive amounts of weather. Pictures of people sitting on their car roof, caught by a surprise flood, it’s all really quite worrying. Inyoung, the brave girl she is, went out in the morning for dog walking duties. I volunteered to do house duty today. Made an amount of coffee one may think I’m getting visitors, up-levelled a yesterday’s croissant with a few minutes in the oven, and acknowledged a little writing here was somewhat overdue.

I really think you need to re-consider your interpretation of the goodreads stars. The lower limit you set of 3.5 stars is sufficiently explained, and, although I think you lose out on a few good reads here and there, I can agree it works a fair filter. To not be sure how you feel about The Maniac’s 4.34 stars is surprisingly \ for the intelligent being you are. We’re living in digital times when reviewing things seems to be the foundation of how we choose. When the masses come running, objectivity goes out the door first. The book on ten years BTS has a 4.64 rating, beating the bible, Infinite Jest (beaten by Labatut too!), and Anna Karenina. Better even, it beats all the books you’ve reviewed. I had a look and the highest rated book in your list is Assata, An Autobiography, followed by A Song For Nagasaki. Another bomb scientist book, which you weren’t too fond of either, as it appears. What’s left then? Read between the 3.5 and 4 stars or re-consider and set different standards? Is a Bezos owned platform the best measure?

I caught a remarkably, almost dry spell of ten minutes during which I walked from metro to class yesterday morning. Knee-high rain boots are fashion items today. I’m still surprised seeing it. They’re not the green wellies that I was made to wear as a kid, but still. Rain boots, who would have thought. Skirts, dresses, fancy umbrella’s, it all holds up to the image I have of a 19th century Paris, or your average Milanese catwalk these days, but then rain boots. Blue, black, branded. I’d like to know what makes the inside of these boots. An hour in wellies, it would be so damp down there, my feet soaring with blisters, a very uncomfortable walking experience. These girls now they wear the boots all day. I should buy Inyoung a pair so I can have a secret peek into the inner of a modern day rain boot. Probably cozy and snug, a furry, soft liner, and maybe a little heel for added walking comfort. Curious to see when the wooden clog makes its return to the city streets.

Alright, things to do, the rain not relenting today. Wondering what’s new in the cubicle. Or rather along the Utrecht canals, and in the trumpet basement. Salute!

18th, Utrecht

Reading your post was a refreshing break from the drudgery of work, even though it’s temporarily on the backburner. I share the same sentiments as Geert, to be honest. Nevertheless, I’ve been forging ahead with my project, and it looks like I’m in for a smooth landing with the final chapters focusing on his personal experiences, which I greatly enjoy.

Your comment made me realize that this is precisely what is missing from Labatut—some reflection. Your downgraded star reviews have thrown my entire summer reading list into disarray, and I’m now quite alarmed. My rush with Mak was due to the library’s imposed time limit. Despite the generous six-week summer lending period, the demand for “The Maniac” was so high that I had to wait three months to get it. Unfortunately, it became available right in the middle of reading Mak, and I had to seize the opportunity before losing my reservation. As a result, my six weeks have now been halved, and I need a few more days to finish Mak.

The previous Labatut book I read was an intriguing mix of fact and fiction, which I believe is called historical fiction, and I found it effective. I had suspected that “The Maniac” received higher reviews due to the hype from Hollywood’s “Oppenheimer,” yet I also thought, perhaps mistakenly, that the literary world had firmly recognized Labatut’s talent. I’m still hesitant to let go of Goodreads as a beacon. Unlike the New York Times Book Review, whose suggestions I have learned over the years are susceptible to influences from powerful figures and well-connected insiders, Goodreads has unearthed some absolute gems. My reading resume is much stronger thanks to their recommendations rather than my own whims and interests.

The ultimate test, I suppose, is what has happened here: a recommendation from Goodreads followed by the careful scrutiny of a trusted friend. With that, the verdict is in. Labatut’s work seems to carry a strong tendency towards a Dan Brown-like style, so I’ve decided to give it a pass. Instead, I’ll likely seek refuge in the works of Philip Roth.

By the way, everything you have read up to this point has been edited by Chat GPT from my original version, which follows below.  The AI’s version is unquestionably better, in my opinion, even if some essence of myself is notably absent, namely my trademark despair, if I can call it that, making way for a more eloquent language.   We can safely cede the craft to the AI’s, the blog, can essentially write itself. We can spend our time, reading?

Edit: Two hours after writing and following an AH Quinoa Salada, AH Apple Turnover and AH Cappuccino I was pulled into Goodreads one last time and I’m now possibly going to read The Maniac. You gotta look real closely to find any bad reviews, the worst I could find was labelling the novel as some shallow intellectualism, and if that doesn’t describe me, then I don’t know what does.

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So nice to read your post, a break from the drudgery of work, even if it is on the backburner, and the same feelings apply to Geert, to be honest.  Nevertheless I’ve been plowing full steam ahead, and it looks like I’m in for a smooth landing with the final chapters looking to be a focus on his own experiences, something of which I”m fond of.  It strikes me now that you say this is precisely what is missing from Labatut – some reflection, and the downgrading of your star reviews has thrown my entire summer literature lineup into disarray, the alarm bells are ringing.  For part of my haste with the Mak was to do with the library’s imposed time limit.  At six weeks, the lending period for the summer is indeed generous, yet such is the demand, the fervor for The Maniac, that it took a solid three months of being on the waiting list before I could get my hands on it.  And it became available at an inopportune time, right in the middle of Mak, but I had to get my hands on it before my place on the reservation list expired, thus the six weeks is now halved, and I need a few more days to finish Mak.  The previous Labatut I read was an interesting mix of fact and fiction, I suppose the braintrust calls this historical fiction, and for me it worked.  I had suspected that The Maniac garnered higher reviews on the back of Hollywood’s Oppenheimer, yet I had also, perhaps incorrectly, thought that the literature world forcefully declared that Labatut was the real deal.  I’m still hesitant to let go of Goodreads as some kind of beacon, however.  Unlike the New York Times book review, whose suggestions I have learned over the year are susceptible to influences from Mighty Sam and the right set of tits in front of the right executive, it has still unearthed some absolute beauties, and my reading resume is much stronger than it would be if I had gone on my own whims and interests.  I suppose the strongest litmus test is what has taken place in this instance, a green light from Goodreads followed by the reading and scrutiny of a trusted friend.  With that, the verdict is in.  There appears to be a strong notion and tendency, an air of Dan Brown-ness with this Labatut, and I am going to give it a pass, instead, likely I’ll return to the sanctuary of Philip Roth.

Seoul, July 21

I had no idea what an AH Apple Turnover is and as I’m desperately trying to pretend I still have a connection with the young and trendy, I freaked out. Was this another of those examples of language development that I hadn’t kept up with? A trendy way of making the people eat their two pieces of fruit a day? Originating in San Francisco, or Paris, or Seoul for that matter. This is how we eat our apples today. Cronut, ramen burger, apple turnover. Alas, turns out it’s just the English for a good ol’ appelflap. A moment of relief on a Sunday morning.

I can hear cicadas outside. Torrential rains all through the night, but now it’s dry. A life span of two, three days, it’s the cicadas time to shine. Rain predicted later today, and tomorrow, and the rest of the week. Imagine being granted three days and then spending those in the shower, constantly yelling a decibel or two above what’s reasonable.

The river is flooded. The streams too. I walked a nightly walk last night, in the backyard around the hills. It started raining the moment I stepped out. A thing I prepared for mentally when deciding not to bring an umbrella and to just embrace whatever would happen. Still, starting off soaking wet, it’s not ideal for moral. The occasional news photo of a man caught on the roof of his car, a tunnel erased from sight, I see them. I’m consuming an absolute minimum of news these days. Haven’t read a single piece of western (not even Dutch) news in a week, even dodging sports updates. It’s a little stressful at first, an active behavioural change that’s constantly nagging, but then slowly shows its positive signs too. I’ll continue this until the end of July. Not as an achievement, just to allow myself another fork in the road to decide whether to continue or not. The world’s still spinning, the nonsense still continuing without me constantly being on top of it. Do I want to disconnect completely? I do ask myself this from time to time, but it is not that. Just as I don’t want to get rid off the communication device in my pocket, I simply want to become a little less dependent of its many whims and stresses. When I feel I have distanced myself far enough, I’ll add a portion of solid, professional background news to the consumption to stay connected.

Granted, reading Byung Chul-Han’s piece this weekend, plays a role in this conviction but it’s more the confirmation I was seeking. It’s a reason for sadness over lost things, but a valuable piece to read and although humanity cannot be saved, neither can I if I am really honest, I’m not ready to give up entirely. The capacity for building and sharing narratives may be lost on us, I see a little creak in the walls where resistance may be creeping through. Resistance against the over-consumption of information, news updates, shortcut video, and worst of all: Content. Out with all the ‘content creation’, hail to reading books, blowing the trumpet, movies over the eight o’clock news, and our lunatic writing endeavours here.

We went out for lunch with mom and her neighbour friend, our ‘auntie’. Then coffee and a stroll along the city wall back home. It’s 29 degrees and a sign said humidity’s at 84%. Discomfort level up. I find it particularly hard to start working on a piece that’s already written partially. Harder than starting a fresh piece after daily errands. With the closing of the laptop it seems the direction of the writing is lost too. A one-way time machine. With next week’s homework on Korean politics looming over this calm Sunday afternoon, I was hoping to extend the writing a little further but it seems in vain. Korean politics then.

Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant!

24th, Utrecht

Fact:  I am halfway through the text that you sent me.  The chapter about Sarte, meaningless and giving meaning, is so far my favorite.  I think there is also a school of thought that goes against giving things meaning, mindfulness, a stoicism of sorts, a cow just being a cow.  Adding a narrative paves the way for the madness of a writer.  Just my random thoughts.  

Is it possible that you’ve sent me the following chapter; ‘The Disenchantment of The World’ to me before?  I’m having deja vu reading about the family that tells stories with the exception of the boy Konrad who can only state facts.  It is by no means an easy read, and much to contemplate.  The lost art of storytelling.  I can’t help but feel like Konrad in that respect.  Though sometimes, if I jog my memory, I feel that a large part of the reason I came to the Netherlands in the first place, was to have an alternate story, instead of the University -> Job -> Mortgage -> Kids script that I was following.  In some sense I suppose I have the ammo for a good story about that, I need now to work on the storytelling part.  The no-news experiment on your part is interesting.  During work I often put on my headphones and let Spotify go, but it’s not real listening.  In the same vein, I would like to stop with this meaningless listening and only listen with purpose.

I’ve never been known to be a quick decision maker, and so it is with The Maniac.  I glanced at the calendar and still have just under three weeks to have it in my possession, which ought to be plenty of time to get through it, yet I’m still undecided.  I’ve bided my time with the text and some short stories from Zweig, who after reading only two of his stories, I’m ready to declare as a master storyteller.  Both of his stories are of a character having a recollection and thus telling a story.  I like this mechanism, it sucked me in, and on both accounts I have cleared my schedule to finish the piece at all costs.  It hasn’t been a great year thus far for reading.  Three long slogs come to mind:  Fosse, Mak, Starnonne, big books that took ages to get through and perhaps aside from the Fosse, weren’t rewarding enough.  If it’s not The Maniac, it’ll be Roth. The Passenger:  South Korea has been pre ordered and arriving early September.  Just in time for me to hand it off to you in person afterwards.   We were actually planning to go to Canada during that time, however now my parents will come over to the continent.  There’s a major audit at work during that time which will require me to be onsite, but we will find a day or two I’m sure.

In other news, I’m learning that on weekends I need to relinquish all activities.  If there’s an opportunity to run, I’ll take it, and everything else is a bonus.  It’s not easy, and I’m learning to be okay with it.  Yesterday was another example.  When all was said and done, I was supposed to go in for a bit of trumpeting, then decided against it and stayed in bed, falling asleep before dusk.  Generally it’s during work that I’m doing the other things, and soon the day will come when I’ll be obligated to use most of that time, well, working.  I guess I need to be kinder to myself, as they say.  Perhaps contrary to this rhetoric, I’ll say that I’ve lost the game.  Since in the ideal world, those ‘work’ hours are spent on something fruitful.  Reading and writing, in my case.  Instead I’ll be burning those eight hours for the paycheck.  And that was probably what any adult would hope for their child, to do something meaningful during that time.  How to achieve this?  Is the game really lost?  I think I”m just feeling down about all that, there hasn’t been a lot of conviction in my reading or writing of late.  The other day I seriously asked myself if it was time to put the trumpet to rest, at least for now, and focus my days and time on Milo, and when that is finished, to properly rest, and not strive for anything.

Hmm.  I can’t say that I’ve been entirely here in this post, either, despite feeling rested and well fed.