horsie

Eating horse meat is more acceptable in many parts of Europe than the US. In the States we tend to view horses as companions, akin to dogs and cats, while in Europe they are just another animal to consume, such as cows or pigs.

[Americans might be unaware that US-based horse slaughterhouses actually provide their meat to Europe and the rest of the world. According to the USDA, over 12,000 horses meant for consumption were exported during the first three-quarters of 2006.]

So, how do the Dutch enjoy their horse, or paardenvlees? Not as proudly as, say, the French, who boast at least a thousand horse butchers nationwide and serve horse steaks at restaurants.

The Netherlands prefers its horse ground up and surreptitiously mixed with other meats as in meatballs, and the typically-Dutch fast food bitterballen and frikandel. (Bitterballen are finely-minced meatballs with a creamy center and crispy deep-fried exterior, while frikandel are similar to a sausage or hot dog.)

So how does horse taste? I’m not the best judge, since the one time I (probably) ate it was in my first bitterbal, which was promptly spat out into the nearest napkin. But that was more likely due to the bitterbal itself, with its unexpectedly mushy consistency and tangy, sour flavor. Other reviewers seem to enjoy horse meat.

Eet smakelijk!

Photos: Horsie by me, Bitterballen by Kok Robin. Dank je vel!

In the US we like to have our clear separation between patient and doctor: “I will leave the room now while you change,” says the white-coated professional, and after closing the door we cover up in a flimsy paper gown that provides some illusion, however pathetic, of privacy and decency. Rooms are well-lit by harsh fluorescent bulbs and smell of antiseptic, much like a laboratory. Not so in the Netherlands.

The two times I have visited the “lady doctors” here, both offices seemed in disarray, as if the doctor had no time to clean, dust or mop. (Reminding me that Americans can be preoccupied, at times verging on obsessed, with cleanliness.) The doctors remained in the room while I undressed, and had me hop on the table uncovered. Then they stayed in the room while I dressed again.

The actual procedures seem similar, but the etiquette surrounding them is different.

Most Dutch women give birth at home, so perhaps they have no need for the public/private separation we Americans usually maintain with our health care providers. Maybe to them, the body is nothing to be ashamed about.

It’s a noble concept, but somewhat disconcerting in practice to the foreigner, this one at least.

Photo by amy_b at Flickr.

Please note: the title of this blog post is a blatant rip-off of Stuff White People Like, but the content (hopefully) lacks the sarcastic, know-it-all tone. This may become a semi-regular feature of my blog as I adjust to life in the Netherlands. Stay tuned.

I just rode a bike for the first time in Amsterdam after weeks of walking around. The following are some of my observations regarding the Dutch people’s relationship to bicycling.

1) Everyone in Amsterdam rides a bike. Yes, everyone. Old ladies, old men, little kids, very pregnant women. Parents place young children on the front little seat near the handlebars (you can kind of see it in the picture), or a back seat if there are two children. Some bikes are tricked out with a cargo-carrying portion in front for multiple children. Everyone bikes!

2) No one wears a helmet. Not even babies, the 6-month-olds with soft heads. Luckily I haven’t seen any accidents yet.

3) The Dutch are very proficient bicyclists, which makes sense, since they start in utero. They are quick and efficient when navigating the cobblestone streets, multiple lane traffic, trams, pedestrians, etc. The Dutch are such skilled cyclists that it is common for them to multi-task while riding. Here are some things I’ve seen Dutch people do while riding their bikes: talk on a cell phone, carry a briefcase or purse in one hand, wear high heels, write a text message, listen to an iPod, carry a friend on the back rack, carry a dog in the front crate, hold a leash connected to a happily trotting dog, etc.

4) There are established cycling rules that everyone follows. Many streets have paved bike lanes which cars and pedestrians should not use, stoplights have a special light for bicyclists, people signal with their arms when turning. This is related to the Dutch affinity for rules and order, which may be explored in a later blog post.

5) Amsterdammers exude confidence and assertion when riding. To get anywhere in Amsterdam, it is absolutely necessary to be an assertive cyclist. You must believe that the path you are riding is important and all others will make room for you. Do NOT slow down when tourists hesitantly start stepping into the bike lane — instead, continue at your set pace and they will just have to step back. The same approach should be taken when confronted with other cyclists turning into your lane, and cars anxious to cross in front of you. However, please note that this assertive behavior is most effective when you are aware of your surroundings and can respond quickly to others who aren’t so observant. The use of a bell or calling out “Hello!” can be an effective way to gain attention and avoid collision.

6) Some notes about the bikes themselves. The Dutch typically ride old-fashioned, heavy, single-speed bikes. Most of them are plain and black, but some people paint their bikes really bright colors or attach fake flowers to the frame. Bikes should have at least one good lock, most have two, when not in use; bike theft is very common here.

Graffiti found on Runstraat, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

I recently moved to Amsterdam and have spent the last few weeks exploring this beautiful, unique, historically complex city, and trying to understand some of the customs. This picture, documenting several pieces of street art on a plywood board, captures a few notable elements of Dutch culture.

1) Free Tibet: This slogan is spray painted all over the city, in various sizes, usually scrawled across storefronts. Here it’s accompanied by a cute cartoon graphic of the Dalai Lama. I’m guessing the popularity of this slogan is due to the current Beijing Olympic Games and China’s continued colonization of Tibet.

Which leads me to my first point: Dutch society is very liberal and progressive. You might already know that marijuana and prostitution are legal here. But were you aware that in the Netherlands, partners receive the same benefits as married couples, whether gay or straight? Also, people in Amsterdam seem to enjoy speaking their mind on political issues. The other day a cab driver was taking me to my new home. She asked where I was from (of course, America) and immediately proceeded to express her extremely negative viewpoint of George Bush, the Iraq War, religious extremism, etc. I pretty much agreed with everything she said, but was taken aback at her enthusiastic criticisms of my country without first trying to assess my perspective or potential reaction.

[A side note: This woman was quite a character, with a unique style all her own. She was a large woman with bleached-blonde hair, with one of those Marilyn Monroe piercings (a rhinestone located above the upper lip, where Miss M's mole was), long and intricately painted fingernails, and ivy-designed tattoos on her arms and chest. She wore a black tank top that displayed her ample cleavage, and high heels of some sort. I was a bit concerned about her helping me load my extremely heavy suitcases into the van, due to her heels and long fingernails, but she was a total pro and arranged them effortlessly. This is the kind of woman I fear and idolize in equal measure.]

2) Dogs: The plywood depicts not one but two dogs, painted by two different artists. The bulldog holding a paintbrush was tagged by Fake, who has painted many other stencils around town. The cute white and bright-pink poodle shares a similar style to other wheatpasted animals posted in the city center.

There are a lot of dogs here in Amsterdam, many resembling the long-bodied Dachshund (perhaps due to the Netherlands proximity to Germany?). Dogs enjoy a privileged role in society, perhaps akin to membership within the family. Some people ride bikes with their dogs in the front basket, bring them to cafes and shops, etc. Yesterday I had a special experience which demonstrated the extreme importance of dogs to some Dutch.

My partner and I went to get ice cream at a popular local shop. Because the ice cream was so delicious, it was a weekend afternoon and it wasn’t raining (a rare occurrence), the shop’s outdoor seating area was quite crowded. Many people shared tables with strangers, or just sat on chairs, balancing their ice cream and coffees on their laps. Two older ladies near us appeared distressed that they couldn’t find a third chair. They kept pestering the customers around them for an extra chair, bumping into patrons and trying to finagle their chairs around to squeeze an extra one in. I was kinda confused (two ladies, two chairs, what’s the problem?) until I saw their dog. A dark mid-sized dog that jumped up onto my boyfriend’s chair as soon as we left, and promptly began to lick the large ice cream cone the lady offered him. “So that’s why she got four scoops,” I murmured to my partner, somewhat disgusted. I guess that’s just how some people do it here.

3) VNDLSM: yes, graffiti is vandalism. But note the clean, neat uniformity with which those letters are painted. Note the artists’ use of a plywood board that is part of a construction site, soon to be cleared away. These vandals may be naughty, but they probably also appreciate the clean, sleek lines of Ikea furniture as well.

This skunk was stenciled outside the Locopops store on Hillsborough Road in Durham, NC. Not sure why the artist(s) chose to paint a stinky skunk in this location, since Locopops is, like, the best popsicle place in the world. I am moving overseas and will really miss Locopops. Let me explain why, for the poor souls who have yet to eat here:

Top 10 Reasons to Love Locopops

1) It’s not too expensive. If you’re going to have a vice, this is a pretty cheap one.

2) You can eat two and not feel disgustingly full, unlike other treats.

3) It’s a fun place to hang out, with colorful pictures on the walls and lots of light (at least in the three locations I have been to). Customers are happy because they’re eating yummy popsicles, and strangers frequently discuss their favorite flavors and review the popsicles they’re currently eating. It’s also fun and entertaining to watch kids and dogs make a big, melting mess.

4) Friendly customer service representatives will write the different flavor names on each stick when you take home a bunch. They also provide tap water for free upon request. (Note: Locopops used to have water coolers for public use, which helped cleanse the palette between paletas. Please bring back the water coolers!)

5) Popsicles are made from fresh ingredients, including local milk and farmers market produce.

6) Amazing, unique flavors like Mojito, Pomegranate Tangerine and Mexican Chocolate. New flavors every week keep you coming back for more.

7) Customer participation; you can suggest your own flavor to the management.

8 ) Serves diverse needs. Some people like creamy popsicles, others prefer fruity water ice. Locopops has both! Also, sugar-free popsicles for the crazy people who enjoy the sucralose aftertaste, and meat-flavored popsicles for your dogs.

9) Owner went to Mexico to learn traditional paleta-making techniques. 

10) NC is hot, dawg! Locopops provides some relief on a burning, disgusting, sweltering, 100 degree, 100% humidity type of day.

Carpe Paleta

This menu board displays the cream popsicles available that week. Please note that flavors include Lemon Olive Oil, Cardamom Brownie (which is really good) and Pistachio. 

Interesting article in Slate today about high-tech, self-cleaning pay toilets that several US cities have installed recently. Author William Saletan argues that they may be actually worse than regular public toilets. Key quote from an interviewee: “I used to smoke crack in there. But I won’t even go inside that thing now. It’s disgusting.”

Read more about toilets on my last blog post.

Small refrigerator with drawing on side, found near the University of Amsterdam on Nieuwe Doelenstraat.

A helpful person on Flickr helped translate this for me as, “I need to pee, Teis!”, Teis being a person’s name.

Amsterdam is a clean city. On the weekends, portable urinals are put up in major plazas, to discourage urination on the street. This is a great contrast to certain urban areas of Spain and France, where men pee on any street corner they wish.

In other parts of the world, peeing is not just fun and necessary but a way to make money. Here is an interview (scroll down to “Unbanked in Nairobi”) with a woman who lives in a slum in Nairobi, and makes her living running a toilet for public use.

In related news, you can learn more about improving conditions in Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, by going to CarolinaforKibera.com. This week they are hosting a series of music performances throughout the Triangle, NC. Should be fun and informative!

Usually I think tagging is kinda stupid and egotistical, not the most creative form of expression, but this just makes me laugh. It’s an ad for the Coney Island hospital birthing center, and is translated to “We’re the one for birthing… visit the most modern birthing center in Brooklyn” (my Spanish isn’t actually that great, I’m using the English language version of the ad for reference). This photo was taken during a recent trip back home; it’s location is the Sheepshead Bay Road station of the B/Q train, which was basically my portal to the outside world during adolescence.

Like most people, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with my hometown over the years. Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn in the ’80s and ’90s nurtured me on scrunchy socks, hairspray, fast food (one particularly fond memory includes eating a bucket of popcorn chicken — then a recently-added menu option — at KFC on Nostrand Avenue one extremely humid August afternoon, and shortly thereafter puking my meal outside near the garbage can), litter, friends and family, but eventually it was time to move on. I wanna thank all the sexist, illiterate jerks in my neighborhood for providing sufficient reason to explore the world further, and also thank my friends for being fun, creative, and just ridiculous enough to keep me going.

I guess not all the illiterate jerks were that bad… some of them made cool graffiti.

Here is an awesome mural near the Gravesend/Neck Road train station, also photographed recently.

Hey, and if you think writing on ads is just plain vandalism, please consider Banksy’s take on the topic: “Brandalism: Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.” Food for thought… not quite popcorn chicken, but close.

One of Mathew Curran’s stencils, located off Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC

Two weeks ago the Indy ran an article about tension between an elderly black couple in Raleigh, who have apparently allowed loud, disruptive and potentially criminal activities to occur on their property, and their mostly white neighbors, who have repeatedly complained to the authorities. Central to that story was the image of a stencil, spray-painted throughout the neighborhood, depicting a person with a wide-open mouth and a wiry patterned background. The elderly couple and their family believed the stencil to be a hate target, and the artist, Mathew Curran, was called in to the Raleigh police department for questioning. He said that the image was actually based on a picture of his brother laughing.

I spoke with Mathew this week to learn more about his artwork and the controversy over his recent stencil.

Q: How do you make your stencils?

A: I have different models, some are myself and my brothers. I distort the faces: first I shoot the photo (using a standard digital camera with a video fisheye lens taped to it), and then draw from the photo using a thick graffiti marker or shoe polish pens. I freestyle the lines; it really breaks up the face a lot. Sometimes it looks kind of scary because the lines are jagged.

Most of them are black and drippy. I’ve been working on ‘prettier’ images, but even they look distressed. I like to keep the drips, it’s the influence of street art. Keeping the drips is pretty important.

Q: How did you get involved in graffiti?

A: At the end of middle school I started skateboarding, and graffiti came out of that. In high school I did a lot of art. And in college [at UNC--Greensboro] I was exposed to graffiti through the people I lived with and the people in my classes.

Graffiti was always an element I worked with. Then I started doing stencils, which have a clean-cut, graphic design feel. I felt it should tie back into the graffiti style, so I started adding the drips and using graffiti markers.

I don’t do so much on the street anymore. I build canvases, travel around and do a lot of gallery shows. The one time something was put up on the street, it got into the paper and there was misinterpretation.

Q: I read that you were taken into the Raleigh police headquarters.

A: After the News & Observer article, I thought everything was clear. But then the Raleigh police called. They spoke with my family first. Then I was called in to the Threat Assessment Unit.

Q: To see if you were a threat to the family?

Yes. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was painted 13 times, and 13 people live in that house. There were nine on one sign, for Shaw University in Boylan Heights, and four on the other, a school crossing sign. (They’re all gone now.) There were nine children that lived in the house and four adults, and the family thought it symbolized one for each person.

This was two days before my art show.

Q: What was it like to have people think that about your stencil?

I never wanted anything negative to come out of my artwork. I hate that anyone would interpret it that way.

It didn’t have meaning. I like emotional expressions and let people read into it how they want. My artwork is about capturing movement; I did studies of line movement in college.

Q: What is the typical fine for getting caught doing graffiti?

Around $3000, and some community service, basically cleaning up your graffiti.

People have been moving towards showing their art in the galleries. A lot of my friends, we’re in our early 30s and mid-to-late 20s, and we don’t want to lose money anymore, we want to make money with our art. We want to do something positive for the community.

The city wants artists to paint buildings before they get torn down, and become an eyesore. There’s a building downtown that I just spoke with the city about recently. We want it to have a graphic feel, paint it with bright, fun colors that make you happy.

Q: Are there any artists who influence you?

Dave Kinsey, who is a street artist and also does figurative gallery work. Shepard Fairey, a lot of people think he’s a sellout but he’s done some amazing projects. Faile is an artistic collective in New York, they have a vintage graphic design style that’s very colorful, and they do some wheatpaste as well. I’m also inspired by a lot of the young artists that are out now.

Part of a mural by Parail Studios, Mathew’s company, located in front of the NC Museum of Art box office.

Happy (almost) Friday the 13th!

Some people think it’s bad luck, others consider it good. From a feminist perspective, this can be a powerful and positive day: 13 cycles of the moon in a year, related to women’s cycles; Friday is named for the Norse goddess of both love and war, Freya, and the French Vendredi is named after the Roman goddess of love, Venus. (I first learned this from Cooties zine in the mid-1990s. Kate, where are you?)

Regardless of whether you believe in good or bad luck, God, goddesses or nothing, I’d like to dedicate this day to Pele, the fiery volcanic spirit of Hawaiian mythology. I was inspired to make this collage upon visiting Hawai’i in 2004 and seeing the end of the road in Kalapana, where lava had flowed over the entire fishing village in 1990, destroying about 100 homes in two months and forcing all residents to evacuate.

I was also able to visit the current flow in the Kilauea crater, due to the generosity and patience of a local resident and hiker, and experienced first-hand the power of volcanic lava. The heat was so intense I could feel my arm hair and the rubber on my sneakers getting singed. We put an empty soda can in the flow and watched it explode!

Whether you believe fire is a spiritual, scientific or evolutionary element, the power to both destroy existing land and create new is amazing. It reminds me that good and bad can balance each other out in the end… even on Friday the 13th.