Most days are overcast and hovering about the dewpoint like on the video in the previous post, but on the rare days when the sun shines and the sky is blue, like Seattle-ites, who have about the same weather, the people of Amsterdam go out and enjoy it. The city is filled with elegantly rustic small older (15th --17th century) brick buildings that have been renovated and it has a snug old-town feel.

Everyone in the various circles of activities and interests knows one another, it's quite diverse but socially tight. It has about the same population as San Francisco. John Sinclair is living here and podcasting Radio Free Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is on average 1.5 meters below sea level (the airport is 5m below) and has never flooded. It is laticed with more than a hundred canals, over a thousand locks and dikes that have held back the sea for hundreds of years. But some of the buildings have settled and have to be propped up if they're leaning. Some of them tilt dramatically.

I feel like I am re-encountering my birthplace from behind. New York was New Amsterdam and I can feel the origins of its urban culture and architectural grandeur in the streets of Amsterdam.

The Van Gogh Museum was one of my most coveted destinations and it did not disappoint. In the lobby a quartet was playing a Dutch version of Hank Williams' Cold Cold Heart as we walked in, and they continued with a gentle repertoire of country and folk music. The exhibit upstairs was small, the Van Gogh family's collection of around 70 of Vincent's paintings. I was thinking of the consonances between the works of Bob Dylan and Vincent Van Gogh as I walked around. They both broke the mold, they both crafted their work out of inference and references that embodied their images. The portrait of Vincent by Gauguin was there as was Van Gogh's canvas of Gauguin's Chair, the emptiness of which almost echoed with sobs.

In the exhibit you're so aware of light and shadow and brushstroke, how a drip of multiple colors from the same paintbrush defined the grain in the trunk of the Small Pear Tree in Blossom. Vincent. You were here, you are here.

Strains of Don't Think Twice, It's All Right filter in from the combo downstairs in the lobby.

Don't think at all. That's all right too.

Here's a video from Amsterdam. Some R-rated content. Enjoy.



If it doesn't play for you here, you can probably view it at YouTube by clicking on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh2FnQRDIqU

This is a link to an absolutely sensational video, which I strongly recommend you watch asap. It runs 44 minutes and is worth every second. You'll see an extroardinarily well produced, well documented and explicit story of intrigue, espionage, murder, amazing avionics, sabotage and attack, a production of the Military Channel.

It's the story, recently unclassified, of the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor in June, 1981. It runs like a Tom Clancy thriller, but it's all true. They took that sucker right out by complete surprise to the shock of Saddam and the world.

At the time, world reaction to this was highly critical, but today, it should be remembered and remembered well. Particularly with what's going on in Iran.

Watch Raid on the Reactor at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2295792449224502914

You can watch online if you have the bandwidth for it, or download it to watch on your own computer. Do it, do it, do it. Even if you don't give a fig about the politics of it, it's an exhilarating ride.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine;
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

...from Auguries of Innocence
By William Blake



Flower in the Crannied Wall




Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower -but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
...by Alfred, Lord Tennyson



Shabbat Shalom