Happy Birthday mister Grunberg. If I had the voice Monroe had, I´d have sung that for you, but perhaps Ilanit has a decent voice, in wich case she can sing, I can dance, Louise can kiss, Mieke can wrestle, Dens can selfreflect, Jan can fantasize, Oscar will submit Laura, Ron will keep a lookout, Wulfy will bring us to the zone, Anna will paint, Johannes will bake a cake...what a party that would be.

(footnote for those of you outside of Holland -In Holland it´s common practice to congratulate the partner and friends of the birthday girl...)

Noa

Love your little people-collage up there. Nice.
I don’t mind doing the sexy marlin, but do you think it’s appropriate? Maybe it’s better that a male will do that part since the birthday concerns a female. I thought about Johannes. I might join you to the dancing and perform my famous belly dance.

coming year the theme for the 'boekenweek' for children is poetry

@Ilanit, actually, to continue on what Zirilla says regarding women amongst each other: to sing and dance for a woman would be wonderful. I should have said: congratulations mister Grunberg, happy birthday amante (my head was spinning yesterday with fever). Thank god it´s weekend, therefore not many people noticed.

@Noa,
Indeed I like your phantasm party for Arnon’s amante. By the way, I am reading a book by Klaas Hendrikse ‘Believing in a God who does not exist’. It is about the power of phantasms and so much more. Not bad at all.

Noa's party

As I very much dislike partying people you might consider another guest to bring you all to the zone, besides, I may not imagine that somebody with to much alcohol in his poor body would quote some poetry, seems the horror to me.

the picture looks like it was taken in New York, not Amsterdam.
Anyway, nice legs!

jan thys

please read some Goedel as well.

@friede b72
You mean Kurt Goedel, the mathematician?
I think ‘The history of God’ by Karen Armstrong is a very good book on the subject, but already a little bit difficult to absorb for me. But a mathematician like Kurt Goedel is too much for me, I think, although I suppose and I hope that I am not a complete idiot.
Other suggestions?

This picture has already been used before.

dens

i saw it as well. But do you naturally expect the story to go with a picture taken on the moment when the story actually takes place?

jan thys

Books were written about the man. Who happened to suffer from neuroses but -more important- seems to prove with his most important arguement that God does exist. Nobody eversince has been able to reject his theorie. One book was written by mr. Wang and the other by P. Yourgrau. The last one is called 'a world without time'. It is quite popular but not tendecious or much too easy.

Friede

I know a B. Yourgrau, he wrote among other things "the sadness of sex" -- I don't know a P. Yourgrau.

Jan Thys: Try 'Gödel Escher Bach' by Hofstadter, which contains a playful reconstruction of Gödel incompleteness theorem.

By the way, Friede b72:

I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. Gödel never proved the existence of god. Don't get fooled by charlatans with a talent for fallacious argumentation. His incompleteness theorem is not in any way related to the existence of god. Please burn any book that states otherwise. Mixing up formal sciences with god always leads to disaster, if only for the sheer number of people who get fooled by it.

If you're talking about his 'ontological proof' then you're mistaken again. He did make one but he never claimed it was a real proof. It was recreational and he never intended it to be published. It suffers from the same problems as all ontological proofs made before him, like Descartes', and he knew that.

@Friede b72 and Tjitze R
I have found the books by Palle Youtgrau, Hao Wang and Douglas Hofstadter. Thank you.

I don't expect the picture to go with the place or date the story is about, but I do like it when I see something new. Maybe a nice crop of this one would 've been enough.

Tjitze R

Nevertheless, it may be interesting for Jan thys to read. And i don't think Klaas Hendrikse will end this existential argueing either.