Renaissance paintings

What if famous actors had lived in the 17th century? Being famous they'd probably been portrayed:



David Beckham (see the sources here).




Weird Al Yankovic (see the original images here).

Nicholas Cage (for the source click here).

Definitely not a Renaissance painting, but I found the Photoshop effect extremely brilliant:

Source: Worth1000.com (excellent website, expect to see more gems very soon).

Purple Boy

In the early 1990s I used to watch cartoons called The Dick Tracy Show, as part of the show Nouba-Nouba. I remember it beceause I kept an episode on a cassette, "The Purple Boy".



(I love Pruneface's face when he says the painting is worth a fortune.)

PS. If you know this series, please inform me. (That's what we call a fool's hope.)

Back to the… past (for a change) – Part I: Barcelona

Let's go for the account on the first part of my holiday: my tip to Spain with Elodie, my "significant other", as would one of my professors write. ;)

First I had to wake up at 3 am to get ready and go to Brussels Airport by 4.30 am to check in. Thanks to Elodie's parents, we arrived just on time and after checking in we waited in the huge terminal, from which a bus took us to the airplane. Since a passenger hadn't shown up to get into the plane, his or her luggage had to be removed, so we had to wait for an extra 20 minutes before taking off.

Two hours later we landed in Barcelona. Due to a pitiful lack of information we didn't know we had to go to terminal A to get our luggage back, while we were in terminal B… After going through security gates and "talked" to several policemen (I use inverted commas because they hardly know a word of English, and since Spanish is like gibberish to me, communication was hampered), we finally found our luggage, approximately two hours after landing…

Anyway, we had plenty of time at our disposal. It was just unpleasant not to be able to find where our luggage was. Fortunately, everything's well that ends well, so let's forget about that. We took the bus to the city centre, then we headed for our hotel, Barcelona Cathedral, right in the "old city". We unpacked and then went our to get some food:

Yep, we found a Quick restaurant not very far from our hotel. The taste of the "Giant" (my favourite hamburger) was identical. The Coke they gave us, however, tasted awful. Moreover, I took an interesting photograph: I noticed that the cleaning ladies use Dutch (!) signs to warn people that the floor is slippery! (Note that Prof. Mettewie was really amazed when I showed her the picture.)

After that we got back to the hotel and later in the afternoon we went out for a walk in the narrow streets of the old Barcelona. The next day we got up pretty early and we took a metro to go to Barcelona's most famous building: the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Antoni Gaudí's masterpiece.

Usually I hate churches, but I wanted to see this one for its architectural qualities. I was amazed to see all the different techniques that were specially invented to build this monument.

I'm looking forward to seeing this cathedral when it's completed, probably in 2026. It's a brilliant effort to find new ways to build seemingly impossible structures, but I regret that it was done with a religious aim in mind.

After eating at a nearby KFC restaurant (yummy!) we went to a really pleasant park where we relaxed some time.

We also went to the harbour, a commercial mall (not my idea) and to several other places. The next day (i.e. 25 June) we went to Barceloneta, the city's beach, where thousands of people were either sunbathing or playing or sleeping or walking.

We also went to the aquarium, but I was relatively disappointed: I had to pay 16 euro… just for myself! So 16 other euro for Elodie… Outrageous! Inside the building the fish and other sea creatures were all right, with even a conveyor belt in a glass tunnel to let us wonder about sharks and whatever fish — but it was nothing to write home about. Well, I just did, but… Oh, forget about that.

Later we went to the Park Güell (also designed by Gaudí) where I took some nice pictures of the city.

Unfortunately, I ran out of battery power so you (and I, obviously) won't get any pictures from the splendid main terrace, "surrounded by a long bench in the form of a sea serpent" (as said in the Wikipedia entry).

On the last day of our trip we didn't get up very early, so we had to rush to pack things up and leave the room before 12 o'clock. We went for a walk and we ate at a McDonald's (don't worry, we also ate local food on other occasions) and in the afternoon we stayed close to our hotel. We took the bus round 6 pm to go to the airport. We waited a bit, checked in and we took off soon after the semi-final of the European football championship, opposing Spain to Russia, began. We landed in Brussels at 11 pm and got our luggage back without any trouble. Who said everything was more complicate in Belgium?

In conclusion, this was a fantastic trip which I spent with a most delightful person, my beloved one who I'll never thank enough for these wonderful four days. I'm already looking forward to our next trip!

Landscape

Instead of talking about "linguistic landscapes" (cf. the summary in Dutch I posted last Friday), let's enjoy this beautiful painting by Rob Alexander, an illustrator who works for Magic—The Gathering:


It's almost like in this commercial for Joival, the milk brand…

Martine's a naughty girl!

My mother sent me these twisted covers of Martine books. Actually, a website allowed you to do so by displaying the original covers, and you could change the title very simply. But the publishing house, Casterman, didn't really liked that and asked the webmasters to close their website. It was good advertisement, though!

"Martine is a Jehovah's witness"

"Martine discovers Playboy"

"Martine thinks of commiting suicide"

"Martine buys a freezer"

(I hope you got the visual joke)

"Martine and Condoleeza invade Iraq"

"Martine's gonna do it with Jean-Claude Dus"

"Fuck! I forgot to take the pill!"

"Martine doesn't master the YMCA yet"

Trip to Ghent

Yesterday all of the Bac2 students went on an excursion to Ghent.

The date was most suitable: the trade union of the SNCB/NMBS had decided to go on spontaneous one-hour strikes throughout the whole day… Nice.

About twenty students took the train in Namur, others in Mons or Liège, etc. (Because they had already gone back home to avoid carrying their luggage (I mean by that: clothes to wash) all day long.)

I was leaving from Namur. In the train, some of us played that infernal card game called Uno—I like it a lot: I played endless parties with friends when I was younger. The train arrived in the station of Brussels North round 9 pm, then it didn't want to move, for the stations of Brussels Central and South were completely stuck.

By chance, the train to Ghent that we were supposed to take in Brussels South had just stopped on the other side of the platform! In that very train we met some of Prof. Delabastita and Prof. Vandelanotte, accompanied by his newly appointed assistant for the first-year grammar course, Ms Breban.

Then the train took a kind of detour round Brussels, and before you could say "Jack Robinson", we arrived in Ghent. In the relatively kitschy station hall, we met some other students that had come either by car or by other trains.

But the problem was that 4 students who took the train in Mons had suffered the effects of the strike in Brussels, too, and after about quarter of an hour, I was asked to stay in the hall with Mr. Romero and Mr. Van Mensel, just because I was able to get in touch with the delayed students… Anyway, it was a good opportunity for me to talk in English and mostly in Dutch with both assistants. Meanwhile, the group had gone to the museum and started to visit the exhibition, British Vision.

The four students from Mons finally arrived, then we walked to the museum and several minutes later we joined our fellow students, divided into two groups for the guided tour of the exhibitions.

Our guide showed us some of the greatest paintings that were exposed, great masterworks by famous British names such as William Blake, Francis Bacon, John Constable, James W.M. Turner, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and many others. I wasn't particularily struck by those pieces of artwork, but it was still nice to see them "pour de vrai".

We got out of the Museum voor schone kunsten round 1.15 pm, then we took the bus to go to the North of the town, where we were free to do get some food. I bought a pack of chips in a typical frietkot: the chips were nice, but the packs weren't big at all… (But we're in Flanders, not in Morlanwelz.) And the fried cervelas was good, too. After that, some of us started interviewing people about their dialectattitudes: we were asked to do that as an exercise for Algemene taalwetenschap. Here are the questions (in Dutch):

1. Spreekt u dialect en/of Standaardnederlands en/of een tussenvorm (bv. tussentaal).
– Indien ja: waar, wanneer en met wie?
– Indien geen dialect, waarom niet?
2. Vindt u dialect
– mooier dan Standaardnederlands? Ja/Nee
– nuttiger dan Standaardnederlands? Ja/Nee
3. Mag, volgens u, dialect op de radio en de televisie?
– Waarom wel/niet?
– In welke programma's? Met of zonder ondertitels?
4. Kunt u twee typische uitdrukkingen (+ betekenis) in u dialect geven?
5. Waar komt u vandaan?

After that, we walked towards the British Innovations exhibition at the Museum voor Industriële Archeologie en Textiel. It was quite interesting to go back to the past and see old machines and inventions, as well as ancient texts and objects coming directly from the industrial revolution.

When we were done with this museum, those who had already done all of their interviews for Dutch could leave us to go to the station. But as I didn't want to leave so early, I stayed with a group of more than a dozen of students, plus Mr Delabastita, Mr Vandelanotte and Mr Van Mensel. We stopped at a café and we all had a drink.

But it was already 8 pm, and we had to take a tram to go to the station. There, we found out that the 6.27 pm train was about 20 minutes late. But in total, it was more than 40 minutes late, for the Oostende-Eupen train arrived at 7.05… "What a kerfuffle!" We took that train, going to Brussels. There, we caught another (delayed) train to go to Namur. It arrived in 9.05, so that I managed to catch the 9.10 bus to go back to my student room.

What a day!

[EDITED ON 28 OCTOBER:]
I wrote a blog entry on germ@namur about this excursion. Please check it out!

Goblin Bowling Team: One of My Favourite Illustrations Ever

The other day, I was telling you about my afternoon at a bowling alley. I found a perfect illustration that depicts the moment perfectly. Check out this card:


It's a brilliant piece of artwork painted by the talented Pete Venters, one of my favourite illustrators of Magic—The Gathering. This card is part of an expansion (Unglued) that makes fun of the game. Hence the silliness of goblins playing bowling…

The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil

I've already shown you some artwork from that card game I play (Magic—The Gathering). This time, I'd like you to take a look on this lovely picture, drawn by Kev Walker, a brillant British artist. This illustration isn't to be found on a card, yet. It's used on two boxes in which you can sort your cards, those two boxes being part of the Tenth Edition Fat Pack. That's, basically, a fat pack in which you get those two boxes + 6 booster packs (75 cards in total) + a 20-sided dice + a book about the game.

This painting depicts the eternal struggle between good and evil throughout magic; the fight opposes three beautiful angels to some demon from the Pit. I like it because it has such a dynamism to it that I'm wordless. And I've never been disappointed with Mr. Walker's paintings.

Magic—The Gathering: Artwork (1)

Being also a real fan of the American trading card game (TCG) Magic—The Gathering, I think it would be interesting to show you some of the most beautiful artworks that the cards feature. This first one was drawn by Mark Zug, as an illustration for a dragon card called Vorosh, the Hunter. For more information about Magic, go and have a look on www.wizards.com/magic. (You won't understand anything, but still.)