a cultural weekend

this friday i saw the thermals in tivoli. they gave a great performance, although the public was a bit shy (in dutch i would say 'lauw'). they hardly applauded and almost didn't move. well, nowadays i'm not a dancer at concerts myself, i show my enthusiasm by clapping and whistling. but if i were younger i would pogo at this concert.
 
saturday our parents had their 35th wedding anniversary. my sister thought it would be nice to surprise them with the play 'caesar and cleopatra' in the 'amsterdamse bos'. she lured them to her house and at the end of the afternoon my friend and i came in - which was already a surprise - and then we went to the open air theatre, had a picnic till the play began at 21.30.
it was a good and entertaining play, the weather was nice, but the mosquito's were a pain! i have 4 itchy bumps now.

sunday a friend of mine came over and we went to see the Dom. the cathedral exists 750 years, but in 1674 the mid ship was blown away by a great storm. they never rebuilt it because of shortage of money. this year they construed it with 'steigerpijpen'. (it's the construction pipes used when constructing or renovating buildings)
standing next to it you could imagine what huge this cathedral would have been. but probably seeing it from a distance and from above would give yet a better idea. unfortunately that is not easy in a city like utrecht.
we stayed in a spiritual mood and visited the catharijne convent - a museum in a medieval monastery and about religion. there we saw some nice icons from russia.
 
in the evening we saw fahrenheit 9/11 in the new cultural centre 'louis hartlooper complex'.
the building (1928) is an example of the amsterdamse school and is designed by J.I. Planjer. it was originally used as a police office, but in 1987 the police thought it did no longer fit, it was too small. several ideas for future use followed and it took till 2004 to become a cultural centre for film, arts and debate. the official opening will be this fall.
 
and the documentary... well it was a nice and clever work of cutting and pasting. it makes you think about it nonetheless. but doesn't the other point of view does that also? by showing only fragments you get curious, whether they support bush's point of view of moore's. you just want to find out what's the whole story. and the harder you seek the more questions you come up with. isn't there an american saying?

the plain and simple truth is neither plain nor simple.