“Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .””
C. S. Lewis
Author Archives: Jan Van Haver
Song of the day: Isolde et les Bens – Aluminium Folie
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Female percussionists seem to have this strange effect on me (those who have attended a live performance of Lenny Kravitz will know what I am talking about – that level of energy is downright scary). An excellent example of the species is Isolde Lasoen, who is playing drums in a number of Belgian bands and on occasion also releases solo work or performs with Isolde et les Bens.
Watching the clip of this live version of Aluminium Folie (a song about tin foil, of all things) does not really show her exquisite skills at percussion as she’s only taking care of the vocals here, but trust me: she’s good at it (the live performance of Daan‘s classic Housewife at Lokerse Feesten a couple of years ago still belongs to my top 5 festival-memories ever).
Quote of the day #55
“The British are too polite to be honest, whereas the Germans are too honest to be polite.”
Henning Wehn (a german stand up comedian – he did
not come up with the expression, but I heard it from him)
When do you stop being an immigrant?
These last few weeks, refugees from war zones like Syria have been headline news around the clock in just about every single news bulletin. On their journey towards Europe, they encounter both very positive and very negative reactions from the local population of whichever area they happen to be passing by (or got stuck in) that day.
The locals reacting negatively are pointing out that a number of the refugees are not on the run because of a dangerous situation in their home town, but Continue reading
Quote of the day #54
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
Wendel Berry
(often attributed to native indian Chief Seattle, but there is
no solid proof of that – thank you once again, Quote Investigator)
Song of the day: Isbells – Reunite
Belgium is quite rich in high quality output when it comes to alternative pop music. Some of it is coming from bands that stick around for years, spitting out one album after the other and succeed in also gathering a substantial fan base outside of their country of origin, some of it from smaller bands with a rather local fan base.
That this latter category does not imply a lower quality of the output, is proven by this amazingly beautiful Reunite by Isbells. Wonderfully addictive guitar (or some other string instrument – not really sure it is a guitar) and drums. No wonder it was picked up by some creative in an ad agency for use in a commercial (from the Belgian national lottery).
Contradictio in terminis #1
Whoever felt the irresistable urge to demonstrate a total lack of any sense of reality by coming up with the name ‘Rapido’ for a caravan, was clearly never stuck behind one on a mountain road.
Quote of the day #53
“I’d like to die on Mars, just not on impact.”
Elon Musk (founder of PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX)
Banner frustration
I’m quite sure you have also experienced this already: at the exact millisecond your mouse pointer (should you still be using one of those prehistoric devices called laptops or desktops) or your finger reaches the area you intended to click/tap, the link to the content you wanted to access jumps 1 or 2 centimeters down. Continue reading
Quote of the day #52
“A man who does not want anything, but does things solely to earn money, is in any case a poor man, even if he earns that money.”
Bertolt Brecht (in Dreigroschenroman)
THE SECOND HALF 