Welcome to my Blog!
I hope to share here my irrepressible thoughts on news, music, books, arts, history, cultural events and such like.
In general these will be items, events and issues which I feel have no place on my website (which focusses on aviation history and my travel photography).

The item immediately below this would be the latest posting.

"Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself. - Charles Baudelaire
Esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived)" ¬Bishop George Berkeley

"Not even I understand everything I am" ¬Aurelius Augustinus of Hippo

"I'm only myself in front of my typewriter" ¬Joan Didion (I'd replace 'typewriter' by 'desktop PC'..)
"I always think that the quickest way to understand someone is to look at what's on their bookshelfes." ¬Matt Haig

In 2013 I started a series of photo albums on Blurb.com, named '36Exp' (a subject adressed in 36 exposures, a reference to the exposures on most common rolls of 35 mm film: 12, 24 & 36.) back in the day.
The books can be ordered directly from the Blurb.com or Amazon.
www.blurb.com/user/ruudleeuw

CURRENT BLOG

Penguin Modern Classic (1982 / 2026)
Masterfully translated into English for the first time, by Jesse Kirkwood

Seichō Matsumoto (Matsumoto Seichō; b.21Dec1909 – d.04Aug1992) was a Japanese writer, credited with popularizing detective fiction in Japan.
Matsumoto's works broke new ground by incorporating elements of human psychology and ordinary life. His works often reflect a wider social context and postwar nihilism that expanded the scope and further darkened the atmosphere of the genre.
His exposé of corruption among police officials and criminals was a new addition to the field.
The subject of investigation was not just the crime but also the society affected. This book 'Suspicion' is a good example of that style.

'A taut psychological novel about trial by public opinion and how we shape the truth. Is she a victim or a murderer?
Onizuka Kumako is a fierce woman: tall, beautiful, and not afraid to speak her mind.
In Tokyo bars, she seduces customers and commits petty crime, using her connections to the local yakuza to get by.
When she meets Shirakawa Fukutaro, a rich widower desperate for companionship and unaware of her shady past, the two hit it off and are soon married. But their newlywed bliss is suddenly cut short: one rainy July evening, their car veers off course, plunges into the harbour and Fukutaro is pulled beneath the waves...
Suspected of murder and labelled a femme fatale, Kumako is hounded by the press, but stays firm, repeatedly proclaiming her own innocence. As pressure from dogged journalists mounts, the tide of public opinion is rising against her. But when a scrupulous defence lawyer takes on her case, doubt begins to creep in . . .
In this intricate, psychological noir, Seicho Matsumoto draws out the hidden demons that guide our convictions, our biases and our deepest desires.'
Splendid!

en.wikipedia.org:_Seichō_Matsumoto
www.bookseriesinorder.com/seicho-matsumoto/

Photographer, feminist, phenomenon: Eva Besnyö (1910–2003) changed photography forever.
Together with her contemporaries (Charley Toorop, Rietvald, Cas Oorthuys, a.o.), she experimented extensively with her camera: moving away from painting, focusing on reality, capturing close-ups and full of dynamism.

Wikipedia:
'Éva Besnyő (b.29April1910 – d.12Dec2003) was a Dutch-Hungarian photographer who participated in the Nieuwe Fotografie (New Photography) movement.
Born in Budapest, Besnyö was brought up in a well-to-do Jewish home. In 1928, she started to study photography at József Pécsi's studio where she also served an apprenticeship.
In 1930, at the age of 20, she moved to Berlin where she first worked for advertising photographer René Ahrlé before working on photoreportages with the press photographer Peter Weller.
She became part of the social and political circle of intellectuals which included György Kepes, Joris Ivens, László Moholy-Nagy, Otto Umbehr and Robert Capa.
In 1931, she opened her own studio where she was successful in receiving agency work.

Threatened by the onset of National Socialism in 1932, she moved to Amsterdam with her Dutch friend John Fernhout whom she married.
With the assistance of her mother in law Charley Toorop, she participated in exhibitions which led to commissions in press photography, portraits, fashion and architecture.
Her solo exhibition in the Van Lier art gallery in 1933 consolidated her recognition in the Netherlands.

After the war she again received commissions for documentary work but became less active as she raised her two children fathered by the graphic designer Wim Brusse.
In the 1970s, she was active in the Dutch feminist movement Dolle Mina, fighting for equal rights and photographing street protests.

www.fotomuseumdenhaag.nl/en/exhibitions/liberated-camera
en.wikipedia.org:_Eva_Besnyö
www.flickr.com/photos/... more

Recently had my first visit to the Kröller-Müller Museum, drawn by the exceptional Van Gogh exhibition. But there's so much more..!
I admired the most beautiful Van Goghs and masterpieces by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Charley Toorop, as well as Piet Mondrian.
Briefly I wandered through the sculpture garden (circa two hundred sculptures to be admired here amidst De Hoge Veluwe National Park) but I soon succumbed to tired feet. Besides the large Vincent van Gogh exhibition there are 6 more expo halls!

The Kröller-Müller Museum is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park near Otterlo in the Netherlands.
The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of her and her husband's former estate (now the national park), opened in 1938.
It has the second-largest collection of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, after the Van Gogh Museum.

The Kröller-Müller Museum was founded by Helene Kröller-Müller, an avid art collector who, being advised by H.P. Bremmer, was one of the first to recognize Vincent van Gogh's genius and collect his works.
In 1935, she donated her whole collection to the state of the Netherlands.

www.krollermuller.nl/en
en.wikipedia.org:_/Kröller-Möller_Museum

This book presents 75 ways to look at art and 75 life lessons you can learn from it.
From the works of ancient Egypt and Greece to today’s abstract and conceptual pieces, by way of Leonardo, Dürer and Rembrandt, Picasso, Warhol and Ai Weiwei, art inspires us to take a fresh look at the fundamental questions we face.
Questions about success, about love, about work, about friendship and about life and death.
Think Like an Artist, Don’t Act Like One (160 pages) is a lively introduction to art history as it resonates in your own daily life. And an exhortation to look at art in your personal way.

www.bispublishers.com/think-like-an-artist-dont-act-like-one

Overview of the work of Eddy Posthuma de Boer, arranged in chapters social documentary photography, landscapes, portraits (including Mulisch, Nescio, Jan Hein Donner, Cees Nooteboom), architecture, et cetera.
Ca. 150 photographs, all photos in black and white. 176 pages. With a chronicle of his photographic work, of books featuring PdB's work, of assignments, and of his photographic trips in the years 1959–1984.

Eddy Posthuma de Boer (b.30May1931 – d.25July2021) was a Dutch photographer and photojournalist. He worked for a number of Dutch media and as a freelancer. He made portraits of writers, musicians, and ordinary people.

He started his career as an assistant with ANP and subsequently worked together with such media as De Volkskrant and Het Parool (both Dutch daily newspapers).
As a photographer, he visited over 90(!) countries, and one time was a travel reporter for the (Dutch) magazine Avenue.
He also documented the development of youth culture and paid particular attention to jazz and rock-’n-roll music.
He was greatly influenced by Eva Besnyö.

www.amstelbooks.com/eddy-posthuma-de-boer-simon-vinkenoog-beeld-in-zicht
drukwerkindemarge.org/ - /eddy-posthuma-de-boer-beeld-in-zicht (NL)
en.wikipedia.org:_Eddy_Posthuma_de_Boer

Narrative: An unidentified corpse is recovered from a Lewis peat bog; the only clue to its identity being a DNA sibling match to a local farmer. But this islander, Tormod Macdonald, now an elderly man suffering from dementia, has always claimed to be an only child.
When Tormod's family approach Fin Macleod for help, Fin feels duty-bound to solve the mystery.

Isle of Lewis, among the Outer-Hebrides. Peter May paints in dark colours this crime fiction: dark clouds, very stormy weather, something a golden or silvery ray of sunshine, it seems to rain most of the time! He handles his narrative brush very well!

Lewis is, in general, the lower-lying part of the island: the other part, Harris, is more mountainous.
Due to its larger area and flatter, more fertile land, Lewis contains three-quarters of the population of the Western Isles, and the largest settlement, Stornoway.
The island's diverse habitats are home to an assortment of flora and fauna, such as the golden eagle, red deer and seal, and are recognised in a number of conservation areas. Love to go there one day!

Peter May (b.Glasgow 20Dec1951 – d.25Sep2026) was a Scottish television screenwriter, novelist and crime writer. He was the recipient of various writing awards in Europe and America.
The Blackhouse won the U.S. Barry Award for Crime Novel of the Year and the national literature award in France, the Cezam Prix Litteraire.
The Lewis Man won the French daily newspaper Le Télégramme's 10.000-euro Grand Prix des Lecteurs.
In 2014, Entry Island won both the Deanston's Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and the UK's ITV Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year Award...
The Lewis Trilogy: after being turned down by all the major British publishers, The Blackhouse, the first book in 'The Lewis Trilogy', was published first in May's adopted home of France in French translation at the end of 2009.
Meanwhile May's books have sold more than twelve million copies worldwide. Certainly will be looking out for more of this author!

www.goodreads.com/ / -the-lewis-man
en.wikipedia.org:_Isle_of_Lewis
en.wikipedia.org:_Peter_May_(writer)

In (translated) 'With a Parisian Pen' the reader follows in the footsteps of famous writers and discover a fascinating Paris. Explore Paris with photographer Bart Koetsier and Margot Dijkgraaf as compelling guides.

Paris is a city full of huge contrasts. You'll find the trendiest cafes, but also tiny, dark pubs with a very elderly woman behind the bar, a way-too-fat tomcat by her side.
The past is still visible, directly or indirectly, in the streets of Paris. One can lose oneself in the big city, feel lost, wander to get lost, find things you didn’t know you were looking for, and observe scenes you’ve never seen before.

Paris is a city of splendor and spectacle, but also of extreme poverty.
Beneath that beautiful surface, behind that shiny facade, the city bubbles, lives, stinks, and blooms...
In this fascinating book Bart Koetsier's eye comes together with Margot Dijkgraaf's literary gaze on Paris. Dijkgraaf highlights 10 major Dutch and French writers versus their characters in Paris.
The photos by Bart Koetsier create a very unique atmosphere and add real value.
Highly recommended.

margot-dijkgraaf-bart-koetsier-met-parijse-pen

Now widely acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest photographers, Saul Leiter (b.1923–d.2013) remained relatively unsung until he was rediscovered by curators and critics in his early 80s, and his work has been drastically re-evaluated over the last two decades.
Leiter’s images evoked the flow and rhythm of life on the mid-century streets of New York in luminous colour at a time when his contemporaries were shooting in black and white.
His complex and impressionistic photographs are as much about evoking an atmosphere as nailing the decisive moment.

Saul Leiter was born in Pittsburgh and moved to New York City in 1946. He pioneered a painterly approach to colour photography starting in the late 1940s and produced covers for fashion magazines such as Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar, before largely withdrawing from public attention in the 1980s.
The publication in 2006 of his first monograph, 'Early Color', inspired an avid ‘rediscovery’ of Leiter’s work by contemporary audiences.

His studio in New York’s East Village, where he lived from 1952 until his death in 2013, is now the home of the Saul Leiter Foundation.
The Foundation has begun a full-scale survey and organization of his more than 80.000(!) works, with the aim of compiling the ‘complete’ archive.
This volume, The Unseen, contains works discovered through this process, specifically colour slides, never before published or seen by the public.
Meticulously curated by Margit Erb and Michael Parillo of the Saul Leiter Foundation and supported by texts that explain how Leiter built the slide archive and how it is now being explored, catalogued and restored, this new monograph can be recommended as a must-have for photography fans worldwide.

www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/the-unseen-saul-leiter/
en.wikipedia.org:_Saul_Leiter

'Skorpio' (Bennie Griessel #9 by Deon Meyer)
A day after they get reinstated as captains, Benny Griessel gets the Idas Valley case. A private eye, crushed under a BMW in his garage. Looks a lot like suicide. Vaughn Cupido knew the deceased. He's saying, it's murder, and he want in on the investigation.
Benny would love to have his help, because the case is going nowhere. But Vaughn is stuck with minor arson - a shepherd's hut burnt down high in the Bottelary Hills. Surely, it's a frustrating waste of his considerable talents?
Until a caravan explodes on a nearby farm. And the identity of the body drives the media into a feeding frenzy of majestic proportions. Just a week before the statesmen of the BRICS alliance comes to town.
When rocket parts surface with the name Skorpio on them, the trail leads to Moscow and Africa.
That's when the flames in both cases start burning like crazy. And the clock is ticking…

Another fine Deon Meyer thriller with a surplus of plots twisting and turning!

www.bruna.nl/boeken/benny-griessel-9-skorpio (NL)
https://deonmeyer.com/

First visit to this Mega event! @Kalkar – Looking for bargains, rummaging through junk, and shopping for new goods at a low price: you can do all that at Wunderland Kalkar's.
This amusement park has a mega edition with around 450 stalls. besides the amusement park. Came, away with a few nice finds! ☺

Between 1957 and 1991, West Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands pursued an ambitious plan for a fast breeder nuclear reactor.
In the wake of large anti-nuclear protests at Wyhl and Brokdorf, protest demonstrations against the SNR-300 reactor escalated in the mid-1970s.
Construction of the Kalkar reactor was completed in the middle of 1985. In March 1991, the German federal government said that the SNR-300 would not be put into operation...
The nuclear reactor plant has since been turned into Kern-Wasser Wunderland, an amusement park with a rollercoaster and several other rides and restaurants. The huge fleamarket is next to it.

My 2026 Streetphotography (colour)
My 2026 Streetphotography (black & white)
More photos on Flickr.com

'A Tourist in Africa' is a travel book by the English writer Evelyn Waugh. It appeared in 1960, many years after his travel writings of the 1930s.
The book is in the form of a diary, describing a tour of East Africa from January to April 1959.
Events and sights are described with perception and clarity, and the history associated with a particular place is often discussed.
The edition I read was published in 1985, by Methuen.

After a channel crossing, Waugh travels by train from Paris to Genoa. There he meets a friend he has portrayed in fiction as Mrs. Stitch, and they go sightseeing, particularly looking at the marble tombs in the Campo Santo (cemetery).
He continues by sea from Genoa in the Rhodesia Castle. It pauses at Port Said and Aden, and the ship spends 5 days in Mombasa; he has visited these places before.

He visits various places in Tanganyika, travels over bad roads, visits friends (often in influential positions). He also visits the The Rhodesias, flying to Salisbury (present-day Harare) in Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) in two stages, staying overnight at Ndola in Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia).
In Salisbury he stays with friends who live there. He visits Umtali, and Great Zimbabwe, the ruins of an ancient city.
The names are of different times, throwing me of the scent sometimes, confusing.

He visits Serima Mission, a church in the diocese of Gwelo, where he meets Fr John Groeber, its architect.
He flies to Bulawayo, and describes Lobengula's part in the local history. He visits Matobo National Park, where there is the grave of Cecil Rhodes; he discusses Rhodes.
He returns to England from Cape Town, sailing in the ship Pendennis Castle.

An entertaining travelogue, Waugh's diary offers a 'time capsule'.

Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (b.28Oct1903 – d.10Apr1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer.
His most famous works include the early satires 'Decline and Fall' (1928) and 'A Handful of Dust' (1934), the novel 'Brideshead Revisited' (1945), and the WW2 trilogy 'Sword of Honour' (1952–1961)

en.wikipedia.org:_A_Tourist_in_Africa
en.wikipedia.org:_Evelyn_Waugh

Martin Parr puts the world to rights in this comprehensive catalogue of 5 decades of his photographs, published to accompany a major exhibition at Jeu de Paume in Paris.
For over 50 years Martin Parr has photographed the absurdities of the contemporary world, from the frenzy of over-consumption and the ravages of mass tourism to humanity’s increasing reliance on technology and our complex relationship with the animal kingdom.

By turns critical, satirical, surprising, and funny, Global Warning is published in association with Jeu de Paume to accompany a new major exhibition of Parr’s photography at the arts centre in Paris in January – May 2026.

Richly illustrated with more than 175 of his photographs, from his early black-and-white work in the raucous holiday parks and sleepy supermarkets of rural England to his more recent colour photography of bustling tourist attractions and must-see destinations from across the globe.
Global Warning offers a reinterpretation of Martin Parr’s work and position in a time of widespread global disorder.

Featuring a tone-setting introduction by Quentin Bajac, director of Jeu de Paume, 4 further essays by Jean-François Staszak, Roberta Sassatelli, Violette Pouillard, and Adam Greenfield, experts in the fields of geography, sociology, wildlife conservation and urban design, put the selection of works into context and explore the important topics that seem immediately relevant to our everyday lives.
I really enjoyed these essays!

www.phaidon.com/ - - - /global-warning
en.wikipedia.org:_Martin_Parr