#gezelligheid

[remidavs]

O zo dankbaar voor het fantastische kerstfeest dat we achter de rug hebben… en wat een heerlijke feest periode met vrienden en familie.

Twee weken geleden kregen we goed nieuws… MRI beeldvorming toont volledige remissie. Zelfs twijfel gebieden of onduidelijke plaatsen waren nu volledig helder. De artsen verwachten bevestiging hiervan bij het weefselonderzoek na de operatie overmorgen. Ja, het komt dichterbij, toch voel ik nog weinig zenuwen. Deze zullen er morgen wellicht zijn als een harpoentje geplaatst moet worden bij de markers waar de tumor zat. Los daarvan zie ik alles zitten.

Ik geniet nu nog even verder van de kerstperiode en het eindejaar om daarna al mijn energie in herstel te steken…

Dankjewel voor alle fijne wensen en steun… ik hou jullie in 2025 verder op de hoogte.

Voor jullie alleen een fijn eindejaar en een fantastisch begin van 2025. Dat het nieuwe jaar er eentje vol liefde warmte en mooie herinneringen mag worden…

Liefs 💋

[sinceileftyoublog]

Andrew Bird & Mary Lattimore Live Show Review: 12/5, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Andrew Bird & Alan Hampton

BY JORDAN MAINZER

A few songs into this year's first Gezelligheid show--Andrew Bird's annual series of winter concerts at the Fourth Presbyterian Church--Bird mentioned that when he put on an Ella Fitzgerald recording when spending time with his family, his niece asked, "Why are you playing Christmas music?" To her, Bird posited, all old music sounded like Christmas music. It's a fairly easy misconception to understand. After all, the feelings you most associate with Christmas, holiday, or wintertime music in general--warmth, joy, familiarity--are often inherent qualities of songs that clearly are from a distant past. A great classic song can make you feel nostalgia for a time you didn't even experience. It's that phenomenon that Bird took advantage of most on Thursday night.

Bird & Hampton

Accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Alan Hampton, Bird played both original and cover favorites from his recorded catalog. Highlights of the former included Armchair Apocrypha's plucky "Plasticities", the minimal "Pulaski at Night", and the swaying "Alabaster" from holiday album Hark! He culled multiple times from his deep well of tunes by Vince Guaraldi and beloved Americana duo The Handsome Family. Midway through the main set, Bird took advantage of returning home and invited Evanston-based longtime collaborator Nora O'Connor on stage. Though O'Connor has long been a backing vocalist for the likes of Bird, The New Pornographers, and The Decemberists, she and Bird actually played a deep cut she recorded with him, a version of Bob Dylan's "Oh Sister" from Bird's 2007 Soldier On EP. The three musicians on stage broke the song down, a capella style, before Bird built it back up with his violin.

Bird

But it was Bird's most recent releases of covers that ended up perfectly encapsulating the allure of the past. In May, he shared Sunday Morning Put-On (Loma Vista) with the trio of Hampton and drummer Ted Poor, a collection of jazz standards (plus one original) interpreted through Bird's unmistakable aesthetic. Bird knows that stringed instruments best emulate human voice, but on Sunday Morning Put-On, he explores the extent to which applying bow pressure on his violin strings can recall the rich sounds that result from blowing air into the mouthpiece of a horn instrument. Early in his set on Thursday, Bird and Hampton performed the Trio's rendition of Johnny Green and Edward Heyman's "I Cover the Waterfront", a song that's been recorded by the likes of Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday. Starting with violin, Bird's fluttering followed the original's vocal line; by the time he started singing, his bowing undulated like a tenor saxophone. The performance was eerie, uncanny, and time-bending.

Bird & Hampton

In October, Bird and singer-songwriter Madison Cunningham released Cunningham Bird (Loma Vista), a track-by-track recreation of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks' pre-Fleetwood Mac record Buckingham Nicks. For many in the crowd, even among the pop music aficionados, it was their first time hearing the songs at all: Remarkably, Buckingham Nicks is long out-of-print and not on any streaming services, save for some unofficial uploads to YouTube. Bird and O'Connor duetted a strummed, stripped-down, faster-paced version of "Races are Run". On both Cunningham Bird and on Thursday, for "Crystal", Bird inverted the gender of the lead singer, Cunningham and O'Connor, respectively, singing Buckingham's words, Bird harmonizing Nicks' parts. And there's a fun connection between Sunday Morning Put-On and Cunningham Bird, which is John Lewis' "Django", a song that not only did Bird and his Trio cover on the former but that Buckingham and Nicks covered for their album--meaning Bird also reinterpreted Buckingham and Nicks reinterpreting jazz. The version that led into "Races are Run" Bird played on Thursday was firmly the Cunningham Bird version--after all, Poor's drums are key on Sunday Morning Put-On--but the song's inclusion as a standard that can be adapted in many different ways underscored the very concept of Gezelligheid: conviviality, coziness, fun.

Bird & Hampton

Mary Lattimore

Opening for Bird was harpist Mary Lattimore, a musician who has demonstrated over the past several years that combining classical training with clear experimentation and a sense of humor can, too, result in something fun and beautiful. Lattimore, gifted her harp by Chicago-based factory Lyon & Healy, performed tracks from her dense back catalog, many of which had a story associated with them. She wrote Hundreds of Days' "On the Day You Saw the Dead Whale" after, yes, seeing a dead whale in a coastal California town where she was at a residency. "Wawa By The Ocean", included on her 2017 Collected Pieces compilation, was inspired by her holy routine of buying a hoagie from the Philadelphia-born convenience store/gas station chain and eating it on the Jersey Shore. (Upon finding out about the song, Wawa headquarters sent Lattimore a care package.) "Til a Mermaid Drags You Under" aims to reflect the duality of dark and light in the surf town where it was recorded with Slowdive guitarist Neal Halstead, for 2020's Silver Ladders. On Thursday, hearing the songs' contexts gave crowd members a starting point, either as a lens through which to take in the song or as a challenge to see if they could empty their heads and get lost in the pure sounds emanating from the stage. Lattimore, meanwhile, used synths and looping not to trick and lull you into layers, but to show you how she was manipulating the sounds in real-time, as tangible as her plucks and scratches of the harp. At one point, during Hundreds of Days standout "It Feels Like Floating", ambulances were outside driving down the street, sirens on, but the crowd was subsumed by Lattimore's playing. The harp didn't drown anything out by volume, but like Bird's violin would do later, it enraptured a group of people who had walked through the doors of the church to nestle in the safety of memory and imagination.

Lattimore

Lattimore

[shazam-a-lama-orama]

Heh-SELL-ick

How to explain a word that has no translation outside of Dutch and yet is the essence of Dutch culture?  When you come to Holland, gezellig is likely to be one of the first Dutch words you’ll learn, and one of the last Dutch words you’ll learn how to pronounce properly.  It sounds something like heh-SELL-ick, with lots of throat action on the two g’s at the start and the end.

This all-encompassing word is often translated as “cozy,” but it describes an atmosphere which is a whole bunch of warm fuzzy feelings all wrapped up in eight letters – cozy, pleasant, friendly, convivial, quaint, fun, sociable, delightful, togetherness, belonging… it’s just, well, gezellig. 

Think about a neighborhood café with a resident cat licking its paws in the corner; think about a canal house with a window box full of blooming tulips; think about time spent curled up on the sofa with your best friend watching a movie; think about a visit to your grandparents house for a home-cooked dinner… if all of these thoughts giving you a warm, positive vibe, that’s gezellig.

In keeping with the multi-purpose nature of the word, it can also be used to denote enthusiasm, so if your friends ask if you’d like to join them for drinks tonight, you can say, “Ja, gezellig!” (pretty much like “Ja, lekker!”).  And there is even an expression that goes, “Gezelligheid kent geen grenzen,” meaning “Gezellig-ness knows no limits.”

Apparently the only other language that has a close equivalent is German, with the word Gemütlichkeit (which appears equally un-pronounceable).

Gezellig is my wish for you today.. in all it's meanings. May your day today be cozy, pleasant, friendly, convivial, quaint, fun, sociable, delightful and so much more.

[de-meerpeen]

Prachtige eerste handbal wedstrijden in Sportcentrum de Terp

Sportnieuws: 'Prachtige eerste handbal wedstrijden in Sportcentrum de Terp'

[njoypicturesfotografie]

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗵𝘁!

Hoewel het nu nog druilerig buiten is, kan ik niet anders dan vooruitkijken naar de prachtige herfsttinten die ons te wachten staan! De bladeren gaan straks weer in hun mooiste jasje van goud, oranje en rood. Benieuwd naar wat de herfst voor jou in petto heeft? 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗺𝗶𝗷𝗻 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘀𝘁𝗸𝗹𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗵𝘁! Laat je inspireren en wie weet krijg je zelf ook zin om die herfstige sferen in huis te halen!

[twafordizzy]

Hari Kunzru schetst een beeld van Magda

bron beeld: wnyc.org Hari Kunzru (1969) is schrijver, journalist van Britse komaf en van Indiase origine. In de nieuwsgierigmakende bundel Het boek van andere mensen (samenstelling Zadie Smith) levert hij een vrolijkmakende bijdrage. Die gaat over Magda Mandela (ze beweert de dochter van te zijn), een vrouw die erg de aandacht op haar weet te vestigen en niet kan kiezen tussen oude of jonge…

[raspberryconverse]

Trying to find somewhere to go for dinner after we see Andrew Bird tomorrow and...

"We could go to Nando's for dinner"

[mvolooo]

🌟 Nieuw ontdekte leeswereld met Mvolo Leeslamp! 📚✨ Geniet van 5 kleurenwarmtes & 5 lichtniveaus voor perfecte leesmomenten. Check deze geweldige video! 😍

[maaikeverhaaf]

[sinceileftyoublog]

Andrew Bird, Margaret Glaspy & Julian Lage Gezelligheid Preview

Andrew Bird; Photo by David Black

BY JORDAN MAINZER

It's that time of year again--not just for Christmas or Hannukah or beer and wine advent calendars, but for Andrew Bird's annual Gezelligheid concerts at the Fourth Presbyterian Church. This year, Bird will perform 7 shows: tonight, tomorrow, and the 11th-15th. Usually, he plays a mix of original songs and holiday-related covers or standards. In 2020's Hark!, Bird has his first ever Christmas album to his name, so you can expect to hear a few of those tunes, too.

If it were up to me, Bird would gift us some instrumentals. That is, earlier this summer, he followed up 2022's Inside Problems with a companion album, Outside Problems (Loma Vista), improvised instrumentals recorded outdoors in Ojai, CA. Though it follows some of the formless themes of Inside Problems, it's wholly original and some of Bird's most inspired work in years. "Epilogue" is flaneur-like, Bird purposefully not giving thought to the potential for other band members or a chorus or structures, while cheekily titled tunes like "Mormon House Party" and "Tik Tok" use repetitive sways to lull us into the bends of Bird's violin. Best, his gorgeous voice does appear, but in the form of wordless vocalizations, harmonizing with his plucks on "Mancey" or popping up on the off beat on "Mormon House Party".

Margaret Glaspy; Photo by Josh Goleman

Opening for Bird each night is a duo comprised of Margaret Glaspy and Julian Lage, creative and life partners who have never released any recorded duo material but have plenty of history showing up on each other's records. For one, each had a hand in producing the other's 2023 album, Glaspy's terrific Echo the Diamond (ATO) and Lage's Grammy-nominated The Layers (Blue Note). Echo the Diamond prominently features both Lage and Bird collaborators (The Bad Plus drummer Dave King, bassist Chris Morrissey), and you can certainly hear Lage's jazz influences on the skittering Ryan Lerman co-write "Hammer and the Nail". Not to take anything away from Glaspy--Echo the Diamond is far and away her best album yet mostly thanks to the increasingly worn twang of her voice and ability to make worlds out of fleeting moments and the conversations we have with ourselves, in our own heads. From country-tinged odes to new love ("Act Natural") and feminist rallying cries ("Female Brain"), to reverent admittances to the power of our minds ("Memories") and self-criticism ("Turn The Engine"), Echo the Diamond runs the gamut of emotions in a lean 35 minutes. At the center of it all is Glaspy's observational prowess, or as she describes on closer "People Who Talk", her ability to "make like a fox and start listening."

Julian Lage; Photo by Alysse Gafkjen

Glaspy's influence on Lage's The Layers is a tad more palpable. Written as a described "prequel" to 2022's View With A Room, the record showcases interplay between Jorge Roeder's bass and King's drums, and at times between Lage and Bill Frisell. Glaspy's able to emphasize the raw timbres of Lage and Frisell's acoustic guitars on "This World", or Lage's expansive, twinkling playing on "Missing Voices" atop King's creaking percussion. And the title track is a chugging, almost country rock number, an instrumental that could back Glaspy without batting an eye. In fact, it wonderfully previews Lage's latest choogle of a single "Omission", produced by Joe Henry and that will feature on an upcoming Blue Note album next year. It's hard to predict what Glaspy and Lage will play, but both artists, individually and together, have the chops to make it a memorable opening set you won't want to miss.

[superm4ks]

When Danny ric yells gezelligheid on Dutch soil for the 747th time and yk gezelligheid one of the first words baby Max taught him and doesn’t really have a direct translation to English instead kinda describes a sensation of belonging, feeling loved and comfortable and relaxed in a social situation. A positive atmosphere typically shared wid others . Togetherness

[de-meerpeen]

Volleybalvereniging Wieringermeer viert opening nieuwe sporthal met spectaculair Glow in the Dark Toernooi

Sportnieuws: 'Volleybalvereniging Wieringermeer viert opening nieuwe sporthal met spectaculair Glow in the Dark Toernooi'

[njoypicturesfotografie]

Herfstliefhebbers, het is tijd om te pompoen-en! 🎃

Duik in de magie van het pompoenseizoen met heerlijke recepten en creatieve decoraties. Laat je inspireren door mijn blog en ontdek hoe je deze feestelijke vrucht kunt omtoveren tot een waar herfstfestijn! 🍂✨

Benieuwd naar meer? Lees snel mijn blog over Pompoenpassie!

[twafordizzy]

Een herkenbare moeder aan de rivier

bron beeld: nrc.nl Willem van Toorn (1935, Amsterdam) schreef met De rivier een roman waarin verschillende geschiedenissen naast elkaar bestaan. Het is het verhaal van een middenstandsgezin uit de Betuwe; de herinneringen van de schrijver aan zijn jeugdjaren en het verhaal over het rivierenlandschap, zo kenmerkend voor ons land. Het boek is ook de herinnering aan de ouders. Zoals onderstaand…

[slutforpringles]

visacashapprb: How well do the boys know Dutch racing terms? Not very well apparently… 🇳🇱

[nedermemes]

vrolijk kerst voor zij die het vieren en heel, heel veel sterkte alvast