Tag: paris
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Choosing your city
Heard in the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg on 20 August 2016: There he was, Philip Glass (1937), the great American composer and pianist, speaking about his autobiography, ‘’Words without Music’, and also playing a piece of his work (‘Choosing Life’ from ‘’The Hours’) on the piano, in the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam. Harpist Lavinia Meijer and pianist Feico…
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Cities Becoming a Luxury Good
Read on Bloomberg.com of 24 May 2016: In ‘Urban Living Becomes a Luxury Good’ of 24 May, Justin Fox of Bloomberg described how after the financial crisis Americans are flooding the city centres of the biggest cities. The suburbs are still there, but something fundamental has changed. Increase in employment in downtown areas of…
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Genius
Read in ‘De wereld van gisteren’ (1944) of Stefan Zweig: His ‘Die Welt von Gestern’ was published in 1944, the book was translated in Dutch bij Willem van Toorn in 1990, I read it only last week. A great book it is! On 22 Februari 1942 the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig and his wife…
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A beautiful city
Read in ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ (1859) of Charles Dickens: Have you read all those newspapers publishing on Paris this weekend? On all those killings, violence in the streets, terrorism, islam. Can’t get enough? I prefer rereading Charles Dickens. Dickens published his great novel on the French revolution in 1859. His own life…
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Bombing does not help
Seen in the Opera house, Amsterdam, on Friday 13 November 2015: Strange. Very strange indeed. On Friday night, while we were enjoying ‘Dialogues des Carmélites’ of Francis Poulenc at the Amsterdam Opera and were captured by the killing of all those nuns in revolutionary Paris by the mob’s guillotine – the end scene of…
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Importance of a ping-pong table
Read this summer in London and on the beach: At the beginning of every summer, more or less round the month of July, correspondents and critics of newspapers and popular magazines always give personal lists of their favorite books. ‘These are the books I advise you to read.’ I love those lists. So that’s why…