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On the wall
Finally started setting up my new home office for drawing. Time for new illustrations.
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Animals and us
This year I read two Dutch-language travel books about one animal species. With a corresponding message, how they are threatened with extinction.
Walrus, drawn by me In Wally en wij (Dutch) Irwan Droog travels after the walrus Wally. This walrus became world famous by showing itself in several European coastal towns. Like at the lighthouse on the Irish Valencia Island and on the British and French coasts. Irwan tries to answer the question of why Wally was there, how Wally's arrival was experienced by local people and how this species is increasingly under pressure from climate change, among other things. Surprisingly interesting.
“At that time the price of walrus skin had risen due to the discovery that it was excellent for polishing bicycle parts.” – Wally en wij (Dutch)
Pangolin, drawn by me Anne Broeksma has an obsession with a completely different animal that needs protection. The pangolin. In Een verhaal met schubben (A story with scales) she follows the trail of various pangolins in both Africa and Asia. But apart from a pangolin shelter where she works as a volunteer, she doesn't see the scale animal in the wild. However, she does find how the pangolins is a 'walking bag of money' for humans. The reason that the pangolin is still being hunted for despite the fact that it is seriously threatened. A nice and sad book about one of the most special animal species on earth.
“The pangolin helped me get off the couch, focus on a defined subject and discover the wild beauty of the world, which still exists. Reading a lot of news makes me feel down. I can't fit a hundred catastrophes in my head, but it does fit one strangely scaly tree dragon.”
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Louisiana
A lot of great art to see in Lousiana Museum, Copenhagen. But I found the gigantic woodcuts by Franz Gertsch the most inspiring.
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Origin of Species
Nog even sparen voor deze geweldige uitgave van Darwin’s On the Origin of Species door Folio Society.
The book that revolutionised our view of life on earth more than any other, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, is presented in a fabulous Folio Society limited edition of 500 numbered copies; half-bound in leather with hand-marbled paper sides.
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The National
The National is one of those bands that still feels obscure, but is now one of the biggest bands of the moment. Or as Phoebe Bridgers puts it nicely: “My friends and I have this joke about The National – obviously they’re hugely popular, but we still feel this ownership over them”. ”‘No but you don’t like them in the right way! Do you even understand how profound this band is?’”
Entirely in that tradition I was asked to help put together the most Underrated songs of The National. The most popular songs, such as the most listened to on Spotify, are excluded from the list.
Mijn favoriet? Het prachtige So Far Around the Bend dat uitkwam op Dark Was the Night. A album for the good cause with original songs from Arcade Fire, Beirut, Sufjan Stevens, amongst others. The album was produced by the Dessner brothers and vital ground for later collaborations such as Big Red Machine (with Bon Iver) and Taylor Swift. In Dutch you can listen to a a great podcast episode about this album.
I also voted for beautiful 'small' songs from the band, such as Wasp Nest, All the Wine, Secret Meeting and Ada. And of course also the number 1 on the list: Mr. November.
The podcast by Dutch radio station KINK can be listened here.
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Jeff Tweedy
With his band Wilco, Jeff Tweedy wrote several of my all-time favorite songs on albums like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born. However, Tweedy also wrote three books over the past 5 years, which I all liked.
Let’s Go (So we can get back) Is a wonderfully readable autobiography, which is full of his (particularly surprising) musical inspiration. And also very personal with family suffering, drug problems and depression. I read it when I just got out of hospital after my stroke and the book will always have a special place in my heart because of that. Just like the playlist with songs.
How to write One Song, doesn't sound so interesting to someone who can only strike a few chords a-rhythmically, but turned out to be a great, down-to-earth, book about finding and preserving creativity.
The recently released book World Within A Song goes even deeper into how decisive specific songs can be in your life. Just like Let's Go, it's wonderful how he interweaves his personal story through the chapters. Even songs that he finds terrible, or those that he has learned to appreciate. Dancing Queen by Abba for example.
‘It feels good to stop hating something.’
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William Beebe
Beebe’s Bathysphere A few years ago I stumbled upon The Remarkable Life of William Beebe, by Carol Grant Gould. A fantastic biography about one of the last real explorers (on planet earth).
As a biologist/ornithologist/naturalist Beebe undertook countless expeditions which are hard to summarize in a short blog post. But the most imaginative are his deep sea expeditions with the Bathysphere. From this small steel ball, he descended on a cable to almost 1km deep into the ocean and described the miraculous, luminous life at this depth.
The Bathysphere adventure gets the attention in the recently published The Bathysphere Book by Brad Fox. On the basis of personal notes, drawings and photos, the expedition is further explored in short chapters. With trips to his friendship with Theodore Roosevelt and obsession with Charles Darwin and the Galapagos Islands.
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Revolver
Philip Norman's new George Harrison biography is a great opportunity to listen chronologically to his Beatles songs. Like the 'If I needed someone' on Rubber Soul. Or Tax Man, on Revolver, a record I hadn't listened to in a long time.
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Finding Endurance
The best book I read this year is Finding Endurance.
The fascination with the Endurance expedition began for South African writer David Bristow-Bovey when his father told him that he had gone south with Ernest Shackleton. As a 10 year old boy, David even gave a speech at school about it. When his father dies shortly after, he finds out that something is not right. His father was not yet born when the Endurance sank.
After Shackleton’s Endurance is found in 2022 deep in the sea near Antarctica, David starts a journey. In search of Shackleton's story, and how he manages to get all the members of the expedition home alive. But especially in search of his father, who was tied to his home after a stroke. And where, together with him, he created his own world.
The survival story on the pack ice of Antarctica remains great to read. What made this book different is the personal journey, trying to find his dad, who passed when he was young. A search that will move readers who have parents with chronical illness, or are a parent with chronical illness themselves.
Finding Endurance: Shackleton, My Father and a World Without End by Darrel Bristow-Bovey.
EN 
NL