Another Strook with something I drew, read, and listened to.

Drawn

When sketching the sea turtle (which I shared in my previous newsletter), I have to pay attention to both the piece of shell and the entire turtle, so that the shading and balance are correct. If I make something too dark, everything has to be darker. I thought it would be fun to capture that intensive process in a video:

The video can also be viewed as a reel on my Instagram account. With no fewer than 31 likes, you could say that I finally understand the Meta algorithm and am going viral with my drawings.

Reading

As a lover of 19th-century explorers, I had never heard the name Franz Junghuhn before. In Leven op een Vulkaan (Life on a Volcano), professor Ulbe Bosma describes his exceptionally rich life as a doctor, botanist, geologist, and geographer. That life already starts adventurously. He escaped a childhood of poverty by studying medicine, but ended up in prison for dueling. He managed to escape the authorities and joined the French Foreign Legion, which sent him to serve in Algeria. At the age of 25, he entered the Dutch colonial service and left for the Dutch East Indies.

Ultimately, the German-Dutch Junghuhn spent 30 years of his life on Java and Sumatra, where he mapped volcanoes, plants, and Java itself, among other things. Junghuhn climbed all 45 active volcanoes and several extinct ones. In his works and letters, he warned of the major ecological consequences of deforestation. In this respect, Junghuhn, as a jack-of-all-trades, is reminiscent of Humboldt, whom he also admired and with whom he corresponded regularly. Bosma therefore calls Junghuhn one of the last giants of natural science. In the second half of the 19th century, natural science increasingly split into separate disciplines and these kinds of all-rounders disappeared. He also demonstrated his versatility in his drawings, in which perspective served his message.

The book provides an interesting picture of the times, but as a reader, it remains somewhat unclear what Junghuhn actually discovered and researched. More attention is given to his volcanic character and quarrels with other scientists (including those from Leiden University).

Listen

Cut Worms clearly shows that he is a big fan of 60s pop and folk such as The Beatles, Beach Boys, and Dylan. His voice is often reminiscent of George Harrison or Rodrígues. Beautiful ballads, interspersed with wonderfully light-hearted music, make me return to his music every summer. Songs like Too Bad and Sold My Soul went straight into my all-time playlist.

I collected my favorites in this playlist:

No Strook in the coming weeks. See you soon!