The Amsterdam Culture Report
Someone recently told me I should write more about my own surroundings. From canal street, to kanaal40. So here I am. No qualification: just few underdeveloped thoughts. The complete opposite thing than what the title says. But someone else told me to to just write literally about whatever, without reservations. So here we go.
Has the VanMoof yuppie run out of steam?
Electronic steam. Like the literal electricity that powers those devil desire machines. Has the company’s failure truly pulled the plug of its loyal riders?
Is there going to be a moment in which, all together, at once, their pretty bikes will stop working and drop? Belly flop, head first, side bounce.
Likely not. Or not yet. But maybe soon?
I am leaving Amsterdam for a few months next week. So I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of culture(s) at play within the city. What will I find when I come back?
Last weekend, Klaproos and schietsclub both closed. I didn’t know until one of my colleagues told me that he ended up at their last party. I have been there only once, I have no attachment to them specifically. But I do have thoughts on how literally every other place in Amsterdam which brings any sort of “scene” “attention” “participation and adoption by youth cultures” “food trends and food innovations” “music” “culture” “social opportunity beyond school and work” will close in the next 4 to 5 years. This is not an exaggeration. Especially in Noord, it is literally the legal status of much of the places that define the lives of young people [in the generous window of 18-35]: built on leases which sometimes get extended (Garage/Skate/Europizza terrain) and sometimes not (Schiets/Klaproos, BakkerijX). The antikraak system allows somewhat more ambitious/unusual/trendy enterprises to arise through a lower cost of entry compared to the atrophic city center ; but it also keeps everyone on a short leash.
When I started working at Europizza they showed me around the construction site at the back of the restaurant. They had been able expand to the lots behind and besides their original one. They pointed to the half built wall and explained where the dry storage will be, showed off the two new walk in fridge and freezer, joked about calling the new bar “bar benelux”. Showing me the various defects of the original kitchen, they said “we thought we were going to do this for only 3 years, we did things quickly, and now all the cheap paint is chipping”. But then their lease did get renewed, they had made money and attracted investors. They opened a second restaurant and a bar in the 4 months that followed that first trial day. I left the restaurant after another 2, for a number of reasons. The amsterdam noord kitchen is a funny one to work in. Happy to have had the experience and happy to leave it behind.
Now, I don’t want to imply that every business in noord or with noord vibe is necessarily worth of a longer leash-lease. I also do not necessarily enjoy the conversation/crowd/scene that they create-attract. My worst enemy, the van moof man, is key representation of that vibe and I have just fantasized about their crash. However there is something to be said of a city in which precariousness is not fruit of economic instability but of programmed development, a calculated break between economic growth. The classic theory of the “culture class” comes to mind: essentially anything that attracts cultural capital will be eventually used as attraction and subsequently engulfed by capital proper. The hippies, the hipsters, the whateverwearenow are doomed to be exploited and appropriated and transformed into the mainstream. The psychopaths fooling the mops.
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A brief interlude on The Hague face
This doesn’t have much to do with what I am in the middle of writing. Take this as a fun break from my previous boring ramblings.
My friends and I have developed a very elaborate and analytically sound theory we call The Hague face. We extended the original idea to multiple cities, with a rigour possessed only by the most acute and dedicated scholars, without any bias relating to the people we are friends with. But while Amsterdam face, Nijmegen face, and Arnhem face are undoubtedly interesting, The Hague face must be addressed first as it was the original formulation. The Hague face is a man who is skinny, moderately tall, lanky in build. Most representatives of The Hague face have chosen to cut their long hair in in a medieval style. The medieval man haircut is one present all over the Northern Europe scene, but it’s adoption and adaptation in The Hague is remarkable. Squire is a word you would definitely associate with this face. I would even go as far as calling their traits vitruvian. The ~salt air~ gives The Hague face man a certain degree of bravado and prowess only the sea can produce. Any Laak event is overfilled with The Hague face. On the days when laak is closed, possessors of Hague face alternate between the Gay space and a train to Amsterdam. For Seedlaak, they will remain close to home, waiting for us to make our way to their motherland. The Hague face is not something you simply have by being from The Hague. It’s something bigger, something less territorial, The Hague face is a vibe. You can find The Hague face all over the map. It tends to appear wherever there is a concentration of djs producers photographers graphic designers.
I doubt anyone with Hague face is reading this right now, but if you are, I am sorry for talking about your face. It’s just too fun to look at.
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Anyways,
While I have a hard time actually putting boundaries around the group of people I am referring to in my categorisations, I often tend to give a list of attributes and interests, like I just did earlier, which roughly paint a picture of the type of people I am referring to. The listicle functions as much as an indicator of type of person as it does as a way for me to show to you, my dear reader, that I am in the know. I understand the current state of culture. I am an acute observer that can distinguish the old money oud zuid le labo man from the modern “trendy restaurant chef by day- klaproos dj by night” man from the futuristic “rietveld collective-new music genre that is basically hyperpop” man. Yes, these are banal identifiers, and yes they are actually not very accurate labels for a much more heterogeneous factions of the Amsterdam scene. And yet I am always tempted to do this sort of indexing, mapping out what goes around me like a bachelor student writing a shitty essay for their intro to anthropology class.
I am put off by indulging in writing about my own scene(s) -if I ever could be seen as part of one-. I do feel like in many ways in writing any observation about the things I am interested in and I am participating in, rather than ones I feel in opposition of, I set in (digital)stone things that should be just felt, experienced, embodied, rather than talked about or analysed. And in writing those things down, I am attempting to catch something that will always be in motion. Any writing about the thing, the actual thing, that one is experiencing and being immersed in, naturally brings you out of it and you place yourself as an observer existentially distant from what once felt you were in the middle of.
Yet I can’t help but wanting to write things I actually see, I actually do, I actually like, I actually think about and talk about with my friends. And that is okay to do. Especially since I am leaving the city in a week. I am taking a break, looking at Amsterdam actually from much further than writing about it will ever place me. Maybe this is a part 1?
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The other day I was at work at the cafe and a man on a bike had an accident. He swerved because a car who didn’t see him kept driving forward. His head was bleeding, an ambulance was on the way. Someone who saw the crash and helped him out asked if, while the other man was in the ambulance, he could put his bike in our back garden because: “it is one of those fancy electric ones without a physical lock”. The van moof, displaced from its original habitat, started roaring and beeping, so loud and for so long that we had to close the door. After all the necessary checks and stitches, the man who had been in the accident came back, still in shock, to pick up his bike. Slowly, timidly, he pushed it out of the backdoor, put his AirPods max on, starting to ride the devil machine again, probably thinking about the broken light and fender which he would literally never be able to repair.