Like I said yesterday, I am going to have to shut down for a while. I hope to be back soon. Until then, you can email me, but not at the address you may be used too. Please use elianeduvekotATrogers.com. I will of couse remain active on Facebook, feel free to look me up and to become my friend. Or click on the Facebook thingy at the bottom left of this blog. Au revoir!!
Technically I didn't blog today, I write this tomorrow. I am having all sorts of mysterious computer problems, and after I finish writing tomorrow's entry, I'll have to shut down for a while. Different servers, blog software, that type of thing. I hope I will come back, it is all very scary.
I had a great day, it was really necessary.
Michele got us tickets for the Fidelio dress rehearsal, yay. Beautiful beautiful music. And for once, even very great stage design. But then something really odd happened. One of the singers was totally out of sync with the orchestra. At first I thought it was me, because I am such an amateur. But then he sang a piece with two other singers, and they sounded perfectly fine, it was just with this one guy that Beethoven suddenly sounded two centuries too modern. And then, in his third or fourth aria, how humiliating, a voice out of nowhere joined in and started singing his part right. The singer left the stage, he looked very angry. And the others had to bring Fidelio to an end like nothing was wrong. Fortunately the Fidelio part was sung by an amazing voice. I wonder what can cause a singer to be so off in the tempo, could it have been a migraine that put him in some sort of time lapse? It was very strange.
Update: the story made the newspaper!
Don't ask. Art director's idea. I put the first sketch too, just so that people can see I really did the drawing. My god, we had a new member on our illustrator's mailing list. For half an hour maybe. Somebody spotted a drawing in his portfolio that he copied from some other illustrator, unbelievable. He unsubscribed as fast as he could. I don't get it, do such people really think they can get away with something like that?
Seeking to commemorate Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday—and no doubt bring in more business—Krispy Kreme is offering "a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day."
The offer is about "honoring American's [sic] sense of pride and freedom of choice," the chain said in a news release. "Stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies—just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet 'free' can be."
"The unfortunate reality of a post Roe v. Wade America is that 'choice' is synonymous with abortion access and celebration of 'freedom of choice' is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand," American Life League President Judie Brown said in a news release. "The next time you stare down a conveyor belt of slow-moving, hot, sugary glazed donuts at your local Krispy Kreme you just might be supporting President-elect Barack Obama's radical support for abortion on demand."
I hope the editor is happy with this drawing. It is an editor who always wants things different, no matter what. I send something, she has meetings for days on end, tells me what to do, and so on. I don't even have time for that! I deliver my stuff in time, and she is surprised, because she didn't have her say yet. And tells me we can postpone the deadline with ten days. Good morning. Maybe you have ten days, but that doesn't mean I have ten days. So now I just sent her my stuff. Fingers crossed.
I am happy Hans Verhagen was awarded the PC Hooft prize, I can make some money off it. For the same reason I hope Ramsey Nasr is going to be elected national poet, I have got quite a nice one of him too.
It seems so silly to keep going on about this stupid flu, even now that everything is turning back to normal. But I have nothing else, my head is like emptied out by it. I do my work, I walk Orbit, I get the groceries, cook, do the laundry. Watch the temperature fall from zero to minus twenty. No room for more. I picked up prints. I borrowed Kristin's car to drive to Carlaw ave, which is two streets away, pretty silly. But I didn't see myself walk all that ice with a giant portfolio. I always have two prints done on one sheet of paper, one to sell and one to keep. My old printer used to cut the sheet in two for me, the new printer doesn't do that, that is why the portfolio is so giant. And then we had organic sausages with oxheart cabbage. Sounds very meaty. And some grated carrot for the colour.
Still a bit shaky, but back at it. I survived a nasty flu. Fever, everything. Snot. I blow my nose and I fall over from losing balance. Lots of work this week.
Lazy christmas break finally over, and what happens...?
The picture is a screen grab from a worth watching Dutch TV program about the legendary Frisian ice race. But the picture is really only there because Piffin took the camera to Vancouver, otherwise I would have taken a similar picture myself. We went to the Toronto islands today, and there was even more ice on lake Ontario than the last time we went. It is simply magnificent to watch from the ferry. Big patches of shiny mirror like flat ice, bursting to pieces in long long fast traveling cracks, and then whole stretches with broken, pulverized ice, often frozen back together into big lumps. The blowing snow over all that ice. The deafening noise of all that ice underneath the boat. I hope for my friends who live on Ward's island that the ferry will prove strong enough to keep it up for a while, or else they will have to live an even more isolated life.
Happy new year to all, and I have a Facebook friend to thank for this wonderful clip. We didn't feel very socializeable yesterday, so we were headed for a lonely new year's eve. But then of course it started to itch after all, and we decided to head out and distribute oliebollen in our street. Which then resulted in an invitation and a wonderful night in good company with melted Mars bar sauce. A wonderful night even for Otger thank god. He and the beautiful teenagers from Seattle joined 40.000 others on Nathan Phillips Square, and I didn't even have to go along. (If you like the clip, there's much more on youtube)
