Yesterday was Saturday, as you would know if you reading this on Sunday, which is today.
My rough plan for this space is to write about myself on Saturdays but nothing really happened to my “I” yesterday except walking through a park to try out “The Bab” for an early dinner. The Bab is run but young Koren women all of whom speak perfect English though, as far as I could tell little Dutch. That’s perfect for a monoglot like me.
Sunday I try to write about the pornographic imagination, my phrase for how everything is everything (or almost). What comes to mind now are the Met Gala, Kentucky Derby, and Coronation and how the goal at each appeared to be for everyone to dress like an idiot. The outrageous fashion or The Hunger Games elements of such events is obvious enough, I suppose, as is the disparity between such costumery as front page news one day while the uniform of a Ukrainian soldier or the tatters of a Sudanese refugee is what you see there the next. A big part of distraction is how it helps us disown, in Stanley Cavell’s phrase, the knowledge we have. Reality wears discernible threads we want to move on from via the flashcube.
The Oosterpark, I should say, is the park I walked through yesterday. High up there on the long list of Amsterdam’s best green spaces (and yes, Tuesdays are when I write about the city) Oosterpark is also one of the city’s most diverse places.
On a sunny day like yesterday, you might see, as I did, plenty of white Dutchies and lots of tourists too but also a plurality of groups anchored by black guys grilling for kids and each other (and pale folks too), Asian families on bikes, older women in burkas walking together, younger women in Hijab on roller skates, the usual assortment of straggly types getting drunk or high together, and kids and adults of all sizes, ages, and hues kicking soccer balls around or sitting on the grass with blankets and snacks each other. With sun and joy the unifier, you had to look for the differences in tribal markings. Not front page news, just life as it can be.
More than worth the walk, the food at The Bab is, by the bye, delicious.