I'm back, and I'm ringing a bell

Hey suckah MCs!

I'm back from my voyage beyond the stars. I have seen many things, and experienced many wonders. I am now wise beyond my years.

Although I am full of tales, and recollections of daring do, I think it best to keep my stories of European cities to a minimum so I can move on to the important stuff: Are sandwiches the greatest form of art?

But before delving into this pressing question I must first state wild generalizations vaguely supported by limited evidence. So to start I claim that Paris is over-rated. The “splendor” strikes me as a bit gay, and the city’s “feel” is oppressive. Fashion, little dogs, and high prices--these are the engines of Paris. As far the museums and monuments go, I tired quickly of Catholic angst. Sure, there is something powerful in Christian imagery, but fuckin’ aye, how many goddamn paintings of the crucifixion do I have to look at? After seeing so many allusion to salvation, the trinity, and sin, they just sort of blended into another. “Oh…great. Another 15 century masterpiece depicting god incarnate as man?…The chick with the kid? Mary and baby Jesus aye? No shit? Yawn.” Eventually I grew so tired of all the classic stuff, I was happy to see some modern art. My favorite was a photograph of a guy in a bear outfit building a house with a guy wearing red speedos.

Strassburg, however was great. A beautiful town, good beer, good bread, and the most beautiful church I have ever seen. In this church the Christian Imagery wasn't some limp wristed cry about the failings of man. Here, the Christian Imagery was badass. The church was made of this red stone and had gargoyles, angels with swords and spooky pipe looking robo-shit everywhere. The entire place was terrifying. I kept thinking, “holy shit, back in the day it took some balls to deny the legitimacy of the church.” One the tapestries depicted a special place in hell that is reserved for Jews and soldiers (non-crusader ones I guess). It didn’t look that bad. As a Jew I would get to be boiled in a big pot with my coreligionist. As a soldier I would get to be poked with forks. I just hope who ever runs hell manages to give me little of both. I also drank a lot of hot, spiced wine and enjoyed the city’s Christmas celebration.

Amsterdam is the best. I would love to spend a few years there. Everyone speaks English. The building are so narrow and cuddly you just want to snuggle the shit out of them. The city however ought to be ashamed of their treatment of Spinoza. The house where he was born and lived until he was 24, has been demolished. There is not even a plaque or a marker indicating where it would have been. I was able to locate the place only through a 17th century map indicating Spinoza’s house in relation to Rembrant’s (which of course has been preserved). The only Spinoza stuff in the entire city was at the Jewish Museum. There I saw the original painting of the S-Dog’s portrait, as well as a first edition of his Political Theological Treatise, and a lens that he ground. Despite these meager offerings I almost shit my pants in excitement. Even the Jewish Museum however was somewhat dismissive of Spinoza’s glory. There still remains some confusion as to how the Jewish community there (and everywhere) wants to regard him. He is of course the most brilliant and influential mind the Jewish community of Holland ever produced, but his contemporaries also cursed him for all eternity. Poor Spinoza ended up buried outside a church in the Hague (jewish burial being prohibited from him). I didn’t go the church because with my limited time I thought it better to visit his house outside of Leiden. This was the house he lived in for three years. They have recreated his library and his room, and lens grinding equipment there. I only saw the outside of the house though, because it is only open on Monday and Tuesday (a fact written exclusively in Dutch on the website). I walked around the house and posed next to the Spinoza statue in the backyard (the statue lies right next to a neighbor’s laundry line. Depressing? Sort of. But the entire neighborhood is called Spinozalaan (which sound like Spinoza land). I think Spinoza would prefer the living monument of a small neighborhood to some excessive French type glorification. I make this comparison because after visiting the Partheon in Paris, with it’s tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau, I felt pretty pissed that Spinoza got shafted in terms of immortalization. However upon reflection I think the tiny house serves to capture his philosophy towards life much better than a big faggy monument.

So I have reasons to return to Amsterdam. I never saw Spinoza’s grave. I never got inside his house, and I never saw the Red light district. But what I saw of the city was great.