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

Drawing

When reviving my personal blog, I wanted to draw my favorite albums. However, most album covers turned out to be unsuitable for this plan. There were exceptions, such as The Car by Arctic Monkeys. More about that later.

Reading

Every book by Adwin de Kluyver feels like a voyage of discovery. Like his books about the Arctic. In Het Gedroomde Noorden (The Dreamed North), he follows explorers, scientists, heroes, and charlatans to the North Pole. In Niemandsland (No Man's Land), the voyage of discovery takes him to Antarctica.

His personal travel notes alternate not only with well-known heroic stories such as Amundsen and Shackleton, but also with the less obvious protagonists. Astronauts, whalers, and sled dogs. The result is a book full of wonderful anecdotes. Like the crew members of the Belgica who, after a winter frozen in the warehouse, suddenly see people on the horizon and quickly put on their best clothes. It turns out to be a group of penguins. Kluyver also gives the penguin its own chapter.

Did I mention that these are wonderful books?

Listen

Exactly 20 years ago, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not by Arctic Monkeys was released1.

The first songs ended up on our MP3 players via Myspace. Don't believe the hype, they said. Too late, I had already registered arcticmonkeys.nl. On Boxing Day, I now see that I apparently found domain names even more important than family time. At their first performance in the Melkweg in 2006, we can probably still be found somewhere on YouTube in 640x480 resolution.

What followed were years in which we, as a group of friends, traveled after them in rented vans. We saw them in Cologne. Amsterdam. Ireland. Berlin. At festivals such as Lowlands and Best Kept Secret. Born in 1985/1986, just like us, they were our peers and their music grew with us. From carefree on the dance floor to heavier, as on Humbug, produced by Josh Homme. A side that was already evident in my favorites Do Me a Favor and 505. But those first seconds of Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not still have the same effect on me. Believe the hype!

Do I sound nostalgic?2 No, because they have a new song!

See you next week!