Pretty Is As Pretty Looks

Go to a hairdresser and you'll end up a Better Person. More Beautiful. Happier. Nobler. My new hairdresser is Oliver (Interline, Rozengracht) and he is the Houdini of Hairdressers. I gladly accept that I - resisting greyhead - have to look unspeakably ugly for quite some time first. I drink coffee, read the paper, listen to the conversations and hope no one I know will enter the premises before Oliver has rubbed the d:fi (d:struct pliable molding creme, with artifical pineapple flavour) in my color-corrected coiffure.

Boop's Concise Guide (2)

Another short movie in this series - hopefully hyrogliefs Boop will soon see the light, too. I expect to be getting better at this as I go along...
This Suitable Occupation for Girls is a bit of a mystery to me, too. Are we looking at a Martyr? A Witch? A Stunt Woman? You guess is as good as mine.
Most of the film is a shot of a 'moving painting'. The image of Boop burning is printed on special foil (which I found in Voorburg), attached to a glass plate, and set on a frame that I bought through Marktplaats in Delft, originally showing a Chinese waterfall. A simple yet ingenious mechanism behind the glass suggests the waterfall (and now the fire) is actually moving. And there still is an option to switch the bird-chirping-sound on, but since that seemed to go better with the waterfall than the stake, I decided to keep that switched off on this occasion.

For non-moving images, see Mz Boop's Concise Guide.

Up-Market Resort For The No Longer Living

Père-Lachaise in Paris, France, is the top of the pops of the cemetary market; filled with Family Homes, Chapels, Parisians and famous citizens of the world. Roaming its streets I met many a celeb (for a selection, see my Père-Lachaise pics, when I was really looking for the image of The Desperate Woman (I'll come back to that some time). And it is here that I discovered that TDW has no face.

Word of The Week

Word Heard in Amesz bookstore in Rotterdam, while browsing the cookbook section.

Let's Keep In Touch

The letterbox pic is made by Drama Queen, Feeling Faint Today.
Top left headstone on the other pic says: 'Hier Had Uw Naam Kunnen Staan' ('Your Name Could Have Been Here'). Location for both pics: Huis Te Vraag (cemetary, gorgeous garden), Amsterdam.

Cyclops Cat

Believed to be extinct since the days of Ancient Greece, but apparently still around in some form or other. Spotted in Nativity Scenes-alley in St. Jans Cathedral in Den Bosch: the last stuffed Cyclops Cat.

The Oldest Profession

One project I've been working on for a long time now, is the History of Mankind in 21 Images, in which every image has to contain Betty Boop, as a symbol of the Feminine. Since I need to keep myself interested, too, I've now decided to call my project A Short Job Guide for Girls. This isn't the first in the series, but the first one that moves...

My Season's Greetings

And here is my card to accompany wy best wishest to you for 2008. Keep your head cool and your feet warm. It's a pic of me and my brother, having a bath. We only had a shower, and for some reason my brother was afraid of the shower, hence the wash tub. We had three, and this was the middle-sized one.

Approved Season's Greetings

This is the approved card - driving to my parents I suddenly passed a magic bit, with white trees in a light grey mist. When I got to my parents, I ran in, grabbed their camera and ran out again, shouting (they are somewhat hard of hearing, and anyway I was excited) "Found your Christmas Card - be right back" and drove to the fields outside the village where I know are some lonely trees. This pic was voted unanimously (three for, none against) as the right card. As you can see, I really do come from a family of party animals.

Rejected Season's Greetings

For the past few years, I have been making a Season's Greeting Card for my parents. And every year we have a lot of discussion on what is an appropriate card - my father and I tend to disagree about this. This is the Reject for 2008. I quite liked the Vrrroommmm-into- the-new-year spirit of this pic, but my dad didn't want it because it wasn't X-massy at all. On this pic you see him (quite the macho, which is rather unlike him) and my mum on his motorbike. The pic must have been taken between 1952 and 1956 in Van Breestraat, Amsterdam, where they were living at the time. I really would have liked to cut them out of Van Breestraat and paste them onto heavenly blue skies, but considering their age (84 and 87) that may have been a bit too close for comfort.