I see you support the black bikini movement.
That's good to know.

Margot

It's the tatooed number on his forearm. But can also be the bikini, I'm lacking any sense of humor.

Arnon

A perversion of solidarity? Why, because it is an individual act as opposed to organized memory? Because the Holocaust was directed against a group and not against individuals, individualistic interpretation of its memory is a perversion? Personally I think it's a perversion to outlaw cafes during the Holocaust Remembrance Day. First of all because passing time in a cafe is not necessarilly coupled with the Shoa denial. I also wonder why is this sector alone have to be economically punished, I don't think plastic surgeries are cancelled.
Tattoeing oneself out free will seems less perversive to me than circumcising anyone against his will out of solidarity with the group.

Neria
That number is a scar , how can you copy a scar and not be perverse at the same time? By the way, I can assure you that the bar at Auschwitz I was open during Auschwitz memorial day.

Bram

You don't need solidarity for joy (in most cases). Solidarity is called upon for in pain. I remember your pain. I think this is what it means. You pour an opposite meaning to the same symbol. Everyone around you today knows that you are not your private nazi if you choose to express your solidarity this way. If there was such a confusion I would agree with Arnon about the perversity.
Perversitiy to me is also grieving upon a cue. A mass grief frightens me.

Bram (Arnon)

This pouring of opposite meaning into the same symbol cannot be done with all symbols, but with this one I think you can, especially as I believe that in most cases it is a specific number, forced to be personal against the victim's will but ended being so. Had someone chose to tattoe himself with a fictive number using the same reasoning I still wouldn't think it's a perversion, unless he was acting out excessively around the clock.

Arnon, I know you don't like my comments here, forgive me for taking a break forcing my presence on everybody here. I was curious, I read the stuff before you wrote about it, started writing about it myself and then stopped because I knew I had to work. Please accept my apologies. Seriously.

Perversion

A rather strange idea, thinking it to be perverted form of solidarity. The only thing perverted here is the Germans killing and murdering Jews by the millions, tattooing them to keep up their accounting.

I like this son, for he is in love with his father: no, no, not in that perverted way. I truely believe kids love there parents deeply. How deep is a tattoo: only skindeep. There love goes deeper.

Thanks for (not) putting on my url.

Sheers!

Victor

Please compose yourself and stop making yourself ridiculous. You make no sense at all. You're talking in platitudes. You're trying to convince us of things that we don't need you to convince us of. You're overestimating yourself and you underestimate everyone else.

Arnon politely asked you to refrain from commenting on this site. It would be just as polite to stop doing so indeed. That has nothing to do with censorship.

I hate to sound like a follower of this website's host, and I realize I do now, but believe me, it's not like that. I say this because I hate observing the train wreck that you are. That may be because I recognize in you all that I try my best not to be.

Maybe a perverse way to look at this: I remember you writing somewhere that no one should be denied the right to be part of a minority - or something along those lines. Is the son using this right?

I don't think so. On a personal level - and from the article it sounds as if it is indeed a personal thing, despite the fact that it appears in the media - a lot of people do things that would be considered perverse by the outside world.

Tjitske

Go wreck yourself, little pussycat! Solidarity here is something else then in the real world, believe me. So yes, you are another yes-men ( ja-knikker in the Wolters dic). I don't care if A. doesn't want me here; I don't want him overhere either. But he is the one with a woldwide ego. Mine is more modest, believe me.

Sorry, but I don't feel like a wreck, let alone a train wreck. I am an auhor, father, a 'mensch', a sensible man, with, like most of us, a few 'minor' traits in my personality. Hell, I am quit a likeable guy, actually...

But hell, silly woman, YOU DON'T KNOW ME, HAVEN'T SEEN ME, NEVER MET ME , etc etc. If you don't understand my posts, just skip 'm. You're not equipped to grasp them, that is all. On the workfloor this phenomenon has a rather euphemistic name: "the glass ceiling" . Let's be honest here: you're plain dumb , aren't you?

Sheers!

(thx once more for (not) putting my url on)

Tattoes for reflection

It reminds me a bit of the tattoes for reflection by artist Douglas Gordon. Writer Oscar Van Den Boogaard has the word 'Guilty' tattoed in reverse on his back. It can only be read through a mirror.

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_193_1.html

"Gordon revels in the mixed messages found in the tattoo's various cultural associations, from its use as an identifying mark on prisoners to its current incarnation as a subculture status symbol."

Sorry, bad spelling, I meant 'tattoo's', of course.

If anyone's interested: there's still some left over cheese fondue at my house.
No need to discuss Hegel, just bring your own wine.

Victor reminds me of that guy in Apocalypse Now, the photographer. Same level of using language, reasoning and perceiving reality. Simple dialectics, right Victor?

I think Victor responds to the cosmic self enlargement that is typical of paranoid schizophrenia. I wouldn't worry about it if I were him; some great Dutch authors, including Bilderdijk, Perk, Marsman, and Lucas Hüsgen (to name one contemporary poet) have also shown signs of the same tendency. The insistence and repetitiveness of it make it a bit obnoxious; but it's nothing compared to the wilfull malice displayed by others on this blog.

@Rutger

This statement interests me - please elaborate. Wilful malice by whom? I'd like to see some quotes/examples to back your statement up. On previous occasions on this blog, there has been a danger of people being misquoted or placed in general groups without them having said the things that woiuld justify placing them in such groups. Therefore, I'd like to know who you mean and what arguments you have to come to this conclusion. Perhaps you may now conclude that there is no wilful malice here, only reactionary malice to wilful malice by people such as yourself.

Rutger

Do you have a girlfriend? I think I'm in love.

Noa

Do you not think it is interesting that when I talk about willful malice, you purport to have no idea of what or whom I am talking (kind of like the apostles asking Jesus, "Is it me, Sir?") but when there is mention of a man with an axe, you already expect him lying under your bed. You must be the Virgin Mary.

Margot

I understand. It is known as Uebertragung ("transference") in psychoanalysis. I deal with it all the time. If you want to continue this privately, I will need to charge you. I hope that's not a problem.

Rutger

You posted your comment at half past three in the morning.
Did you have insomnia or a hot date?
If I have trouble sleeping I read your father's books.
Works like a charm.

Margot

I was already done with you. Please follow Victor's example, and kindly refrain from addressing me on this blog. I am not your type; can we agree on that?

@Mieke

@you see what I meant to say? In Arnon 's relative absence (he's quieter than usual), Rutger has taken his place already by telling people to refrain from commenting on (t)his site.

You needed evidence of willful malice, Noa?
You may find one example after answering what my father ever did to hurt Margot (or how his work would be dull or boring compared to other examples of the genre); the other by explaining how a request from one person to another qualifies as trying to moderate an entire blogging community.
You are ill-willed, Noa, to the bone; but you are trying to pretend otherwise, and you need me as your counter example.

Bram

In Israel you can't open your cafe during Holocaust Remembrance Day. It's a law. I'm sorry it wasn't clear earlier. Another thing that wasn't clear in my response to you was that you addressed the number as a scar and thought it to be perverssive to copy it. I regarded the number as a memory of pain. Your argument questions the need in of Institutes like Yad Vashem or its equivalents around the world, why would you keep a yellow patch, prisoners' uniform etc? Tattoo is as physical as the others only the difference, as I already stated, lies in the fact it is a personal remembrance and not a collective one.
Lastly, I wrote it in complete irony that the Holocaust was done to a group and not to individuals. Hiroshima and Nagasaky deserve this statement better, as the bomb came in as total surprise, at least to the deceased. What I'm trying to say is that the survival story (succesful or not) of the Jews in the Shoa made the experiense of each very private, despite the fact they were faceless to their prosecutors (or maybe shared only the face of a parasite).

@Rutger, if speaking in truths is what you call ill-willed then by your definition perhaps I am. But as said before, until now I have only seen reactionary maliciousness on this site, ie - in reaction to your willfull malice. You have not been able to put forward arguments that would convince me of the contrary. Instead, in fact when your are challenged you resort to playing on people's vulnerabilities (mine and others), throwing with sperm (to everyone) and wanting to shut people up (Margot). Yes, I'm aware other people have mentioned your relationship with your father in the past (and this was always in reaction to something you said or initiated), but please note I most certainly did not and never would, as to me this kind of personal mudthrowing is cheap and unfair. Summing it up: I only intended to point out the workings of this community. Obniously, I struck a sore chord and you feel exposed, for which I am sorry, but personally I still feel it's unfair when people get away with being extremely harsh to others and vindictious and still manage to rise to starlike status. Then again, as said before: I suppose this is merely a reflection of life itself. Have fun "master Rutger" in this community - you have referred to yourself in this light..

Rutger

You're absolutely right; my type has a sense of humour.