Sarphatipark – Named after the Jewish doctor and philanthropist Samuel Sarphati, this small park is a nice chunk of green space right in the middle of the trendy neighborhood, De Pijp. Not surprisingly, this is one of the first parks I explored when I visited Amsterdam, because it’s in De Pijp. This neighborhood is just south of the Centrum. It’s…
A few years ago, I read Demick’s book “Nothing to Envy”, about life in North Korea, and it was fascinating. In her new book, she explores another mysterious part of the world, the town of Ngaba, eleven thousand feet above sea level, in Tibet. It was one of the first places where the Tibetans and the Chinese communists encountered one…
Over the past few years, I’ve gotten very into photography, and even though I currently live in a city with an endless supply of interesting photographic material (New York City), I get completely mentally recharged when I travel. Amsterdam inspires me like few other places. I took over 4000 photos when I visited. Although I am a hobbyist, I am…
This is a big, heavy coffee-table book about the graphic design of the punk music scene. The author, an American, became obsessed with UK punk in 1977. (I did, too, so I can relate.) He found the graphic design of punk records, posters, buttons, and fliers fascinating, and he began collecting them. His collection grew to massive proportions. This book…
I spent the month of August, 2021, in Amsterdam, and I got very lucky with the museum exhibits. I love photography, and I always visit FOAM and Huis Marseille, the two photography museums in Amsterdam. This time, in addition to these two museums, I got to see two great photography exhibits at other museums – the Fred Stein exhibit at…
This book tells the story of Hendrix’s rise to fame as the best and most creative guitarist in rock, taking us through his childhood of poverty, hunger, and severe neglect, his enlisting in the army, his fascination with music, and his ultimate mastery of the instrument. The book goes into his troubled family life, the girlfriends and other women in…
Beatrixpark is one of the oldest parks in Amsterdam, dating from the 1930s. It’s in the southern part of Amsterdam, south of The Pijp neighborhood. The park has lots of landscaped paths, a pool, a playground, and a really lovely pond. Although I’ve been to Amsterdam many times, I somehow managed to miss getting to this park. I finally visited…
Regular readers of my blog know that I like street photography, and that last year I purchased a camera that was designed for the street: the Ricoh GR III. Street photographers rave about this camera for several reasons, the main ones being the small size, the super sharp images it produces, and the image settings (particularly the black and white…
This is a collection of stories (13 of them) that mostly focus on the personal and family life of the son of an immigrant family in Houston. The father is Latino and the mother is black, and as the son grows into adulthood, he has to deal with life as an immigrant, namely the prejudices and economic realities in his…
This is an informative little book photographic forensics, namely, how to tell whether a photograph has been altered. The book is published by MIT Press, so it’s no surprise that the book goes into a lot of technical details. The details are complicated, and it practically turns the book into a technical manual. The author does describe several court cases…
When I’m in Amsterdam, I tend to spend most of my time in the Centrum. When I decide to go to a park, I usually hit the parks that are relatively close to the Centrum, like Westerpark and Vondelpark. But every now and then, I’ll go out a little further, especially when the weather is beautiful and my plans consist…
I’m not sure what to make of this book. A middle-aged white couple and their two teenage kids are vacationing at a secluded Airbnb in the Hamptons. Unexpectedly, the black owners of the home knock on the door, telling the guests that the power on the east coast is knocked out, presumably due to some nebulous national incident. They’d feel…
This might be the best novel I’ve read all year. This book is a combination of fairy tale, murder mystery, and philosophy book. Who has the right to live? Who has the right to kill? Who determines who is sane or not? It’s the tale of an intelligent, quirky old woman living in a remote Polish village near the border…
