Club Donny 3

#3
ISSUE #3 – 2009 STRICTLY UNEDITED JOURNAL ON THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF NATURE IN THE URbAN ENvIRONmENT
CLUB
DONNY
bulbs
JeNte POsthUma
I share my front door with miss Wendel and mister
Marinus. Miss Wendel, a single, retired French
teacher, lives on the second floor, directly above
me. Sometimes I can hear her singing softly. She
allows me to call her Clara, but I prefer to say
miss Wendel. Until recently, I had never spoken to
mister Marinus from the third floor. He pretends
not to see me in the street. He moves like a shadow
along the house fronts: bent forward slightly, his
gaze fixed firmly on the pavement. Every Sunday
morning at seven thirty he creeps downstairs and
silently mops the stairwell. From the bottom all
the way to the top. He always places our post on
a ledge by the front door. If it remains there too
long, he throws it away. He likes to keep things
tidy.
One day a number of identical notes lay on the
ledge. On them was written in large, thick letters
‘Has anyone seen my bulbs?’ The bulbs belonging
to mister Mulder, the neighbour opposite, had
been stolen. He wrote that he had left a plastic
HEMA carrier bag containing over three hundred
bulbs next to the tree box. They were stolen
when he briefly turned around to talk to a woman
neighbour. ‘A misunderstanding?’ he asks. ‘Or
maybe not?’ He had bought them to plant together
with the local children. ‘A real shame for the
children.’ In a photo he made a reconstruction of
the crime scene: a plastic bag stands against the
edge of a tree box. Instead of a HEMA bag, he has
now used a PRAXIS bag. ‘Now a PRAXIS bag’,
reads the caption.
Together with miss Wendel, mister Mulder
concerns himself with the greenery in the street.
They maintain the rosebush that climbs the front
of our house and have placed a couple of large
pots with lavender and ox-eye daisies by the door
of our building. A note is attached to one of the
pots: ‘Private property, do not steal!’ it reads. Miss
Wendel has also brightened up the second floor of
the stairwell with plants. Now and then she gives
me a plant for my balcony. She likes to give me
small gifts, sometimes a flower, sometimes a few
organic bananas. She places them in front of my
door. If the gift is still uncollected after a couple
of hours, she knocks on my door to point it out to
me. And if I appear to be neglecting the plants on
my balcony, she throws down a bucket of water.
One time, while I was reading in the sunshine, I
got the full load over me. She claimed she hadn’t
seen me.
Fifteen years ago mister Wendel packed his bags
and left for good. Miss Wendel was in her early
forties and saw her dream of having children go
up in smoke. Since then she lives alone and takes
care of the local residents. She can tell stories
about almost everyone in the street. ‘The African
from number 387 is traumatised’, she says. ‘And
Paul from next door has been declared medically
unfit. That’s why he sits on his balcony all day.’
She prefers to talk about mister Marinus. ‘He
wasn’t like this in the beginning’, she told me
once when I came to eat with her. She pointed
emphatically upstairs. Mister Marinus used to live
together with Yusak, a timid Indonesian lad. Miss
Wendel saw Yusak arrive with two large suitcases
one day and seven years later – almost at the same
time as mister Wendel – he was suddenly gone.
Since then mister Marinus has been taking care
of the stairwell. ‘And increasingly he can’t leave
my things alone’, said miss Wendel. Her plants
are a particular thorn in his side. At night he
cuts branches off and lays them on her doormat.
‘What do you think about that?’ she asked me
indignantly.
I prefer not to get involved. It’s difficult enough
for me as it is. Sometimes I lie on the sofa for
hours in my pyjamas and don’t answer the phone.
I also often spend far too long in the shower, when
I listen to the noises from the adjacent bathrooms:
running water, a difficult bowel movement, the
downstairs neighbours arguing. A young couple
recently came to live on the ground floor. She,
a student of business studies and economics,
screams and throws things around. He, a promising
young businessman, consoles her, but sometimes
loses his self-control. Recently she screamed
that he disgusts her and that she would tell his
mother everything. ‘You are crazy in the head!’,
he replied. The nameplate beside their door says
‘Philip and Do’. I bumped into Philip once in front
of the door. He said I ought to come over and have
a drink some day.
I was lying on the sofa when there was a knock
at the door. It was miss Wendel. She handed me
a bowl of homegrown tomatoes and asked if I
would do something for her. ‘Would you complain
to mister Marinus about his behaviour? He thinks
that I’m the only one disturbed by him.’ I promised
her that I’d do what I could. A few days later I
summoned up all my courage and knocked on
his door. He was wearing shorts and a tight shirt.
He had combed his thin grey hair straight back
over his head. Would he mind not throwing my
post away, I asked in a friendly tone. My voice
trembled slightly. Mister Marinus looked at me
conceitedly and denied ever throwing anything
away. ‘I keep the space clean and introduce order’,
he said. ‘That is another thing entirely.’ I looked
past him into the apartment. Long rows of boxes
and cases stood neatly stacked along the walls of
his hallway and living room. The contents were
written on some of the boxes in large letters. I read
‘Yusak’s Things’ somewhere at the bottom of the
pile. On other boxes he’d only written a month and
a year. I thought ‘at least I did what I could’ and
wanted to walk away, when I suddenly thought of
something. ‘Do you, perhaps, know where mister
Mulder’s bulbs are?’ As soon as I asked this, I
regretted my words. If there was one thing I didn’t
want, it was nastiness. But mister Marinus already
seemed unable to hear me anymore. He gently
closed the door and turned the key in the lock.
CLUB DONNY #3 2009 > 03
Two Friends
MeeT in
MilTon Keynes
Dirk sNeLDers & Peter LLOYD
Milton Keynes was one of the last New Towns
to be constructed in the UK. Started in 1967, and
still evolving, it is different from almost every
other New Town. It was conceived as an almost
invisible city from the ground; a city that would
slowly disappear to passing motorists as the trees
and bushes gained in height and denseness; a city
that would make perfect sense from high in the air
(where the architects live, looking down on their
plans). It is a grid – an imposing grid – with grid
squares managed and maintained effectively by
the local council.
Peter’s apartment looks out over ‘the largest and
most imaginative park to have been laid out in
Britain in the 20th Century’1: Campbell Park. It
is sculpted and carefully planted, but Peter often
looks the other way, towards the emptiness of
spaces yet to be built on, where nature takes a
half-managed course, and foxes, birds, rabbits,
dog walkers, and secret lovers pass through or
park up, and where shopping trolleys are left
abandoned. It was to here that Dirk came to visit
Peter in November 2008.
[1] Pevsner, N. & Williamson, E. (1994) The Buildings of England:
Buckinghamshire (second edition), Yale University Press
Part 1: Dirk’s Story
The visit to my friend Peter in Milton Keynes
takes four weeks. I am here to concentrate on my
work, and I stay in Peter’s apartment. I walk to the
centre, the train station, and to work, 4 km away in
the south of Milton Keynes, and where Peter also
works. During the last two weeks I sometimes
drive to work with Peter.
I came to Milton Keynes the day after Peter’s
mother died, so Peter was away for the first part
of my stay. Staying in Milton Keynes by myself
made me feel calm. I started liking this city. Life
in Milton Keynes feels commoditised, but in a
communal way that is welcoming to strangers.
Although I did not always walk through the green
as intended by the city planners, I never felt like
a trespasser.
In amongst the new infrastructure Milton Keynes
04 < CLUB DONNY #3 2009
retains features from before the time there was
a town here, old trees, a canal, a river, medieval
fishponds and Roman remains. An old oak tree
stands in a new shopping mall, dying despite
efforts to keep it alive. The intention was to
build around the tree, the instinct to preserve and
celebrate, but the shopping mall slowly killed the
tree. Now it has become a structure for hanging
blue-white LED Christmas lights, with magical
results.
The grid roads have generous green kerbs, planted
with wild bushes. Roads are separated from
pedestrian walkways and from cycle paths. The
walkways loosely follow the roads through the
green, and go under them through many underpassages. If you know where you are going it
might be a nice experience of endless hazel and
dogwood. For a visitor like me it is impossible
to orientate, and in the beginning it is best to just
walk alongside the roads.
Plots of wasteland are allotted for building,
sometimes with roads already laid out, but still
empty. On most of these plots there are signs
saying these plots are private and access is not
allowed. They are old and overgrown signs, and
the roads and paths through them and the rubbish
lying around signal that they are heavily used by
locals. I tend to walk around them.
One forgets about private gardens in Milton
Keynes, there is less need with so much green
space. Many private gardens are unkempt and
sometimes look like more wasteland. I discover
smaller well-kept gardens, but these are often
walled-in secret spots.
Was I too self-absorbed during my walks to share
my observations with Peter?
where I was living. Most of all he was walking
everywhere, something that I hadn’t done in the
eight months I’d been living in the city.
At first this seemed odd to me. I would drive to
work, offering Dirk a lift, but he just liked to
walk, so I left him and would see him when he
arrived at the University. I noticed how happy and
revitalised walking made him. I’d assumed that
walking to my work would take me too long. I’d
cycled in the summer, and enjoyed riding through
the poplar trees along the canal, but in winter I
always drove.
Why didn’t I walk to work with Dirk? Maybe I
didn’t believe how long he said it would take (45
minutes), after all it seemed like he was on holiday,
while I was working hard. But friends should walk
together and talk about the river, the historical
places, the trees. (Instead we talked about the food
we cooked in the evening.)
Two months after Dirk left we had the heaviest
snow for years in the city. For five days driving
was not recommended and cycling was almost
impossible so I put on my boots and walked to
work through the winter landscape. I walked
along the valley by the river, already beginning
to swell with melt water, and began quickly to
experience the city in a different way. I arrived at
work invigorated, with a sense of achievement.
The snow thawed and my walking continued.
When I now wake in the morning to blue sky I
look forward to my 45 minute walk to work, and
to seeing the same familiar things: the surface of
the canal water, the horses penned in their field,
the bubbling river that two swans call their home,
the same dog walkers and dogs, and the medieval
fish ponds. I realise now that walking can do many
things. It relaxes you, it allows you to think and to
Part 2: Peter’s Story
dream, to transition from work to home and arrive
When I met Dirk outside the railway station I was at home refreshed. And it eases sadness; I see new
sad. My mother had passed away a day earlier, and stories everywhere.
I knew I would have to be away for a little while,
leaving Dirk to discover the city for himself. When And I have my friend Dirk to thank for showing
I returned I was pleased he seemed to be liking me this.
4 F-er
maria Pask
4 f-er is a soap about four women living in a
mobile outdoor community somewhere in the
near future. The following dialogues are extracts
from the pilot episode which introduces their
characters and concerns with the ‘Four F’s’: a
term used in evolutionary biology to describe
the four basic drives or mind states that humans
are evolutionarily adapted to be proficient at i.e.
feeding, fighting, fleeing and fertility.
Floor and her friends Fouke, Fopje and Fleur have
a job to do, looking after an open-air religious
attraction park. However, they find themselves,
through different personal circumstances, unable
to leave. Feeling that they are stuck, they become
caught ‘between a rock and a hard place’.
For Donny I focus on Fouke. Look at the time it
takes to lift her hand to her mouth. Fouke is going
crazy.
Scene 5: Vegans don’t wear suede
Everyone at the site is stressed out because a new
speaker is arriving. They run around clearing
up, cleaning the cups, washing the surfaces, and
laying out flowers etc.
Fouke is on her own. She picks up a handful of
leaves.
Fouke: (muttering to herself) Now that we know
where the hot spots are, we can decide what will
be the most effective way to clean them up, using
beneficial bacteria, or mushrooms, or plants. It
sounds simple, but there are many complexities.
Petrochemicals can be broken down by bacteria
and fungi, but heavy metals are elements, and
can’t be broken down. Lead, for example, is most
soluble when the soil is acidic, and needs special
chelating agents to be taken up in quantities.
Arsenic, one of the most common pollutants, is
most soluble when the soil is alkaline. But where
the hell do I get seeds for Alpine Pennycress or
spores of Ladder Brakefern? What do I do?
Floor and Fouke move back towards the main
action crossing paths. Everyone is throwing paper
flowers in the path of the visiting guru, Yogananda
Gobindi, who has just arrived. He stands there,
rings a bell and declares the following statement:
Guru Gobindi: My name is Yogananda Gobindi.
I come in peace, Thank you for such wonderful
applause, applause that can be heard right across
the city.
(Flashcards to the audience ‘applause’)
This idea that if you are first you are first and if
you are second you are nothing. What’s that all
about? (He is holding a small twig. He breaks it in
half and drops it on the floor).
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line
somewhere. Ha ha.
But once you turn away from money you see that
it doesn’t buy your freedom, just pays for your
prison.
Today we have a tremendous opportunity to
influence the emptiness of what people call Life.
How?
Fouke: (clapping quickly at the word ‘How’) Well
that was fantastic. He was so convincing.
Fopje: (giggling) The vibrations from his bells
and bowls ran all through my body.
Floor: As much as I like to hear a speech about
not needing material things, this is from a guy
with that much product in his hair (hands show
wide empty space).
Fouke: (miming shapes and directions) But what
is true for me might not be true for you; what
counts as knowledge from one viewpoint might
not do so from another.
Floor: And, what is true at one time is false at
another.
It’s called relativism and it’s like saying nothing
at all!
Fopje: (absentmindedly) Do you think he’s got
money?
Floor: A doubt that doubted everything would not
be a doubt.
Scene 7: Delusions
Fopje and Floor are talking about Fouke’s strange
behaviour.
Fopje: It sounds rough but shouldn’t you be
talking to Fouke about this?
Floor: I would but she’s so secretive lately. She
doesn’t talk to me anymore, especially after I had
those, he hum, strange hallucinations with the
unicorn. She comes and goes at all hours in the
night. Sometimes I think she’s not quite normal
you know.
Fopje: (looking sceptical) Normal is relative
right?
Fouke walks in.
Floor: Later OK?
Floor leaves.
Fouke: (paranoid) Why were you talking to her?
Fopje: Look Fouke, this has to stop.
Fouke: I’ve met some really nice people lately;
Eddie the eucalyptus, Ozzy oak, Perry the pine.
Fopje: Are you out of your mind? What are you
gibbering on about?
Fouke: Eddie Eddie, come and meet my friends,
they’re really nice. They like the rain.
Fopje slaps Fouke hard across the face. Fouke
suddenly snaps out of her delirium.
You’re right. What’s got into me lately? This
place, all these crazy people we meet, the ideas
we hear. It’s taken on a life of its own - a machine
that keeps running. In a corner of the tent there’s
even a pile of money (she’s screaming by now).
People leave it there Fopje!!!
Pause.
I’ll should go and make it up to Floor.
Fouke walks off. Fopje runs to a corner of the tent
and looks around for the money.
Scene 8: Secrets
In Floor’s tent, Guus and Floor are changing their
clothes. The reason for this is not yet revealed.
Fouke rings Floor. Fouke is eating grass.
Guus: (naked except for a towel wrapped around
his waist and his mouth is full of food picks up
Floors telephone) Hello?
Fouke puts the phone down. She tries again.
Fouke: Oh hello, I must have the wrong number.
Guus: And you call a second time?
Fouke: I’m pretty sure this is the right number, is
Floor there?
Guus: Who’s trying to reach her? Hold on she’s
getting out of the shower. Who’s calling?
Fouke: It’s Fouke. Are you her new boyfriend?
Guus: Fouke?
Guus puts the phone down in a panic.
Guus: (to Floor) I think I’d better be off. I’ve got
an emergency.
He grabs his clothes and runs out.
Floor: Use the back door!
Fouke goes over to Floor’s tent and sees Guus
running away from it.
Music builds up – tension mounts in a feedback
crescendo.
Then silence. Fouke rips open the tent door.
Fouke: (with a red painted face) What the bloody
hell is going on here?
Floor: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
What’s up with you? Your face is all red. What
have you been doing?
Fouke: You want to know what I’ve been doing?
I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing.
There’s two giant pterodactyls out there. One of
them is shitting all over the place and the other
one was trying to bite my bleeding head off. Never
mind that now do you mind telling me what MY
boyfriend was doing coming out of your tent half
naked. So excuse me for having a red face and
being covered in pterodactyl shit.
Floor: (calm and collected, she pours Fouke
a glass of scotch) Calm yourself and drink this.
Come and sit down. There’s nothing going on.
Look, I didn’t realise he was your boyfriend. It’s
not what it looks like.
The music builds up again (half the time of the
first build up).
Fouke: Are you telling me the truth because lately
I’ve been going through some serious life changes
and I really can’t handle being messed around
anymore.
Floor: Look, we’re all having a bit of a rough
time.
Fouke: How are you having a rough time? I nearly
turned into a tree.
She stomps off.
Floor: (looking down sadly) At least it’s solid.
CLUB DONNY #3 2009 > 05
variegaTion
variegaTion is
The appearance
oF diFFerenTly
coloured
zones in The
leaves, and
soMeTiMes The
sTeMs, oF planTs.
This May be due
To a nuMber oF
causes. soMe
variegaTion is
aTTracTive and
ornaMenTal,
and gardeners
Tend To
preserve These.
The TerM is also
soMeTiMes
used To reFer
To colour
zonaTion in
Flowers and
Minerals
<
aglaoneMa
coMMuTaTuM
<
begonia rex
green portion of the plant leaf being
replaced by white, cream, yellow, or
occasionally other colours, which
may be in the form of blotches or
stripes. The variegations can occur
on the edge of the leaves (marginate
variegation), or in the center of the
leaf (medio variegation.) Variegated
plants which have neat regular leaf
margins of white or gold and tend to
be the most accepted by gardeners.
Some gardeners like the patterning
in the leaf... usually the arts and
croissant crowd. Designers often
<
pinus
Thunbergii
‘variegaTa’
>
agave
aMericana
‘variegaTa’,
napoli
Yuck... as one visitor described a
variegated plant. When I asked why,
he likened using variegated plants to
trying to match plaids with stripes...
hmmm. Variegated plants suffer from
the outdated belief that all plants are
supposed to be green. Plants which
aren’t green, are somehow seen as
sick or unworthy of cultivation.
Many variegated plants are so
unusual that they will forever be
relegated to the status of collector
plants. Being a plant collector, I
value these plants some for their
beauty, but most for their being
unusual. The challenge of blending
large numbers of these plants into
the garden is one worthy of even the
finest designer.
Inquiring minds want to know what
qualifies as a variegation. Variegation
in plants is defined as the normal
06 < CLUB DONNY #3 2009
like the ability of variegated plants
to lighten up a normally dark
landscape. In a landscape design,
variegated plants are often used as
the center of attention or as a focal
point in the landscape. Despite the
prejudice against variegated plants
as a group, there are many that have
still become mainstream landscape
plants.
------------The Variegated Plant Group (VPG)
is a Specialist Group of the Hardy
Plant Society for members who
have a particular interest in growing
and collecting these fascinating and
eye-catching plants. The purpose
of the VPG is to make uncommon
variegated plants more widely
available, used and appreciated.
www.variegatedpg.org.uk
-------------MILK
THISTLE
Milk thistle, Silybum marianum,
has been used medicinally for over
2,000 years, most commonly for the
variegaTion
summer placed in an airy glass-case
where they may enjoy much free
air, but screened from wet and cold,
they will thrive and flower very
well; for although they will live in
the open air in summer, and may be
kept through the winter in a good
green-house; yet these plants will
not flower so well as those managed
in the other way. They must have
little water given them, especially
in winter.
<
collecTion
variagaTa
oF rob
MeerMan
in his
aparTMenT,
aMsTerdaM
>
sTapela
variagaTa
treatment of liver and gallbladder
disorders. A flavonoid complex
called silymarin can be extracted
from the seeds of milk thistle and
is believed to be the biologically
active component. The terms ‘milk
thistle’ and ‘silymarin’ are often
used interchangeably.
– Thumb can be eaten young raw in
salads
– Older leaves are stewed as a
spinach or cardoon.
– The flower buds are harvested
such as artichokes, which will have
a taste of honey.
– The roots can be harvest the
moment the plants come in bloom,
and used as in stews.
– From the seeds a fine oil can be
pressed, or they can be grounded and
the flour can be added to dough.
-------------STAPELIA
VARIEGATA / STAR FLOWER
This very singular plant is a native
of the Cape of Good Hope, where
it grows and flourishes on the rocks
with the Stapelia hirsuta.
If these plants be kept in a very
moderate stove in winter, and in
VARIEGATED TREES AND
SHRUBS, THE ILLUSTRATED
ENCYCLOPEDIA
by ronald houTMan,
in associaTion wiTh
The royal bosKoop
horTiculTural socieTy.
once The subjecT oF
snobbery and derision,
variegaTed planTs are
now aMong The More
soughT-aFTer
and collecTed
Treasures oF garden
connoisseurs. wheTher
Marbled, doTTed,
splashed, or veined,
variegaTed Foliage
never Fails To caTch
The eye and To add
exciTeMenT whaTever
The Flowering
season
www.TiMberpress.coM
-------------VARIEGATED
BANANA TREES
The fast growth of this remarkable
variegated plant ironically grows
faster than most pure-green leafed
banana plants, which is a shocking
inconsistency to normally accepted
biological principals.
www.tytyga.com/product/
Variegated+Banana+Tree
-------------ADVENTITIOUS
SHOOT FORMATION ON LEAF
CUTTINGS OF CHIMERAS
If you take leaf cuttings from
variegated plants, such as these
variegated Peperomia, the plantlets
that form are never true-to-type to
the parent variegation. The reason is
simple. The adventitious shoots that
form will have the properties of the
region of the leaf from which they
regenerate. The same would happen
with a root cutting. For this reason,
chimeras are never propagated trueto-type by cutting types or methods
that require adventitious shoot
formation.
-------------PINUS
THUNBERGII ‘VARIEGATA’
A group of variegated cultivars
is summarized under this epithet.
These range from yellow-variegated
plants to almost white-variegated
clones. The needles are partially or
entirely yellow, often in branchlets
with entirely yellow foliage. Whitevariegated cultivars should go as
‘Albovariegata’.
<
philodendron,
brazil
^
dracaena
dereMensis
------------- CORNUS
CONTROVERSA ‘VARIEGATA’
A beautiful small to medium sized
tree, the branches are sweeping and
tabulated. The leaves have good
silver margins and add very much
to the overall striking effect of this
plant. It is most likely originated
in Japan and was first imported as
‘furi-mizu-ki’.
In Europe there are several, only
slightly different, colones that are
known as ‘Variegata’.
CLUB DONNY #3 2009 > 31
criTical
naTure
JasON COBUrN
The London metropolis in all of its glory never
fails to bear tragedy, be it the cortisol drenched
office workers, the drowning communities, the
floods of tears, or the selective indignation to
the sea of homeless by the rivers of Disraeli’s
‘Modern Babylon’. Somewhere in its beating
economic heart lies Postman’s Park; an intimate
and contemplative setting inspired by everyday
tragedies from which came tender acts of
heroism. In the 1870s the artist and philanthropist
George Frederic Watts came up with the idea for
a park and monument for everyday heroes. Not
those born of acts serving the collective fiction
of the ruling ideology. His monument would
commemorate acts of sacrifice, frequently unseen,
and repeatedly forgotten. The backdrop to this
idea was a Victorian morality inherited from
Methodist thought, seeking the good and the true
in a straightforward and unhesitating manner, and
a Symbolist painting style aimed at providing
solace for the soul. Although originally proposed
to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee
the seemingly partisan worthiness of Postman’s
Park hid a searing criticality. After all, why would
someone who so vocally opposed the ruling
classes and twice refused the Queen’s offers of a
baronetcy want to honour her reign?
takes its name from a nearby post sorting office
whose workers would use the park – a modest
epithet further revealing Watts’ sympathy for the
industrial working classes. It owes its popularity
and fame to an unassuming terrace in which Watts
installed a wall of ceramic memorial tablets. They
illustrate the woeful tales of sacrifice that so moved
him to create the park in which they stand. Take a
seat and it’s not long before you see unsuspecting
tourists, who have veered from the well trodden
trail to nearby St Paul’s Cathedral, stumble across
the tiles and balk at the sorrowful and sometimes
peculiar inscriptions:
‘Sarah Smith, pantomime artiste. At Prince’s
Theatre died of terrible injuries received when
attempting in her inflammable dress to extinguish
the flames which had enveloped her companion.
January 24 1863.’
‘Thomas Griffin, fitters labourer. April 12 1899.
In a boiler explosion at a Battersea sugar refinery
was fatally scalded in returning to search for his
mate’
‘Henry James Bristow aged eight – at Walthamstow
on December 30 1890 – saved his little sister’s life
by tearing off her flaming clothes but caught fire
Like his namesake George Frederic Handel, himself and died of burns and shock’
George Frederic Watts sought liberty, and justice
especially for the poor and disenfranchised of 19th ‘David Selves aged 12 off [sic] Woolwich.
century London. Indeed it appears Watts was very Supported his drowning playfellow and sank with
mindful of his namesake’s philanthropic use of him clasped in his arms.’
creativity. In Handel’s case it was the performing
of his music to raise money for good causes. In Had the park and monument been named after
a similar vain, Watts readily gave his artworks to Victoria to sarcastically commemorate her reign
museums in Britain and abroad so that a wider it would have run the worthless risk of being
public could view them. However, this hardly nothing more than a political ambush, a folly of
did anything to address the plight of the poor that denigration, restaging tragedy in order to gain
Watts so concerned himself with. He was well ideological points over the opposition. Instead
aware that amongst all of London’s diversity were the monument became a process that outlived
acts of unwavering selflessness, and these deeds Victoria. Up until his death in 1904 Watts installed
very much spoke to his symbolist sensibilities 13 tablets and his wife, Mary Fraser-Tytler,
(privilege the humble and the ordinary over a Scottish designer and potter, added another
idealism). This inspired Watts to question the idea 34. The tablets were fabricated at the Doulton
of the monument and what it pays testament to. His factory. Each one is made up of 8 or so glazed
attention was naturally drawn to the heroic acts of tiles detailing an inscription and decorative motif.
the labouring poor enslaved in the relatively new Equally sympathetic is the park’s planting, with a
yet well-established industrial areas.
majestic ‘handkerchief tree’, Davidia Involucrata,
thoughtfully included because of its allusions to
A letter detailing Watts’ ideas for the monument crying and mourning. Its name comes from the
was published in The Times, but failed to raise any fact that when in full bloom, the flowers look
financial support. In the end, he funded the project like pocket-handkerchiefs. The current planting
himself and in 1880 Postman’s Park opened. It scheme is tame and trim, pragmatic and somehow
32 < CLUB DONNY #3 2009
safety conscious, I would prefer it more overgrown
and feral.
As Postman’s Park nears its 130th year, should it
be re-reconsidered or at least viewed with more
critical appreciation than being ‘Tucked away
from the hungry gaze of tourists’? It’s a fascinating
idea, the notion of something being ahead of
its time, not thorough some historical quirk but
through a genuinely ground breaking approach.
The proposition of Postman’s Park not just as a
monument, but also as a seminal artwork in the
vain of much recent contemporary critical practice,
is a tantalising one. Can Watts’ interpretation of
Symbolism combined with his loathing of the
ruling classes be a very simple precursor to the
mindset of the performative, convivial, critical,
process driven, socially engaged encounters that
artists provide today?
Postman’s Park would sit comfortably in a
continuum of practice which nowadays would
include: Lois Weinberger’s Documenta X project
of dug up tarmac sprinkled with endangered plant
species generally known as weeds, which sought
to show the intangible truth of human migration
in a botanic metaphor (especially being located
near a train station), and Mike Kelly’s Petting
Zoo – an inner city farm referencing Lot’s escape
from Soddom and Gomorrah whilst providing the
function of a stress relieving environment. Their
conceptual similarities are rooted in the same
device – uplifting the ordinary – they also provide
representations of metaphysical sustaining forces
within the human. The main departure in the
contemporary examples would be that they are
speculative, transitory, and more importantly
publicly funded. They all refer to an artistic
practice, which is less about rugged individualism
and is more about mutual interest rooted in a
conviction to societal engagement and unpacking
the cultural logic and effects of its industrial
economy. Postman’s Park was an utterly radical
proposition through its effortless overstepping of
boundaries yet to be tested; a product of bottom
up cultural production, not free of imposed
subjectivity, but nevertheless totally progressive
and uncompromising in terms of countering an
industrial condition that required exacting and
brutal regulation. And it is the familiarity of this
condition that informs the desire to reconsider the
critical nature of Postman’s Park.
Postman’s Park is located between Edward St, Little Britain,
and St Martin Le Grand. Free entrance
round Trip
To grandMa
JaCk segBars
Eindhoven is approached via the motorway from
the direction of Tilburg, the A58. Along the way
there are farmlands, Oirschot exit, crash barrier,
cows, cars whizzing past, many large family cars,
mostly silver-coloured with a roof rack. Many en
route. A lot of greenery, groves, meadows, B-roads.
There’s large-scale construction work just above
Eindhoven, temporary roadways marked with
yellow road-paint, tall barriers dividing, narrow
and winding. On the left the Science Park, Human
Capital Care, a large IKEA, blue and yellow and
traffic lights with rows of trucks. The motorway
becomes the N58 where the speed limit is only
eighty. Turning left goes towards the satellite
village Son, right goes towards Eindhoven.
Straight ahead there is no road, but a forest and
behind it the hamlet Nederwetten with eight
hundred residents. Most of the trucks turn left
into the industrial estate Ekkersrijt, directly off the
motorway.
The N58 winds its way from Son through the
suburbs to the city centre. More company premises
on the left. Viaducts and the municipality sign. The
speed limit is reduced to seventy kilometres per
hour. The N58 becomes the John F. Kennedylaan.
Everyone obediently keeps to the speed limit.
Flats on the left, ten storeys high, standing parallel
to the road, all with balustrades. Light, muted
colours, beiges, indistinct. Between the roadways,
a broad centre strip separating the lanes, grass,
young trees, bushes. Also on both sides of the
road, between the road and the flats. On the left, a
large filling station Q8.
Turn right into the Bisschop Bekkerslaan, fifty
kilometres per hour. A large office building on
the corner. On the left, residential estates, right a
small industrial zone. The commercial premises
are adjoining and face the road. Officetime, Kuik
& Partners Bailiff & Debt Collection, Allfence
(active in both the building and events sectors),
Crossverge (computer service company), and
large notices competing for magnitude announce
that some buildings are also to let, via business
property agents DTZ Zadelhoff and the Schoenman
Group among others.
at right angles and parallel to one another, thus
creating roads and squares, blocks. The roofs have
dark roof tiles, the houses yellow brick. Uniform
little fields and trees, dogs, people in coats. Left,
a small filling station, Gulf. Electricity pylons
follow the road on the left. Their large legs spread
in the segregated greenery, arms with cables high
in the air. Further along, neighbourhoods on the
right too, a few shops, Care Auto Repair, Jansen’s
pharmacy. Close to the road. A little further, left,
various flats, not tall, connected by footbridges.
A group of around twenty square-planted trees in
front of them. The flats are brown with balustrades.
The last in the row is a very large flat, tall and
wide but set back from the road making it appear
slightly less massive. From an angle, you also see
that it’s relatively thin in relation to its surface.
Stretch of grass in front, people with dogs, people
on the footbridges and on the galleries. They look
small.
Right at the next traffic lights is the entrance to the
Henri Dunantpark. A sign and an arc of greenery
supposed to denote an entrance, announces the
park, the darkness of trees behind it. Parked cars
in front, bumper to bumper. The road has parking
spaces in some parts.
The Bisschop Bekkerslaan becomes the
Roelantlaan. Housing estates left and right. Turn
right into the estate, Veluwelaan, right again
at shopping centre Woenselse Heide, a row of
parking spaces between a small field and shops,
car parked opposite the houses, green in between.
In the suburb. Behind me, supermarket C-1000,
florists Belle Fleur, Outlet Fashion ladies’ wear,
Janske hobby supplies, Vissenberg hairdresser’s,
an empty building, public library, Chinese/
Indonesian restaurant Nieuw Orient, pub Het Barbiertje, supermarket Lidl, DA chemist, Mitra wine
shop, cafeteria Woenselse Heide, specialist pet
shop Jansen.
Looking across the little field, at the grass, the
trees and the houses.
Regularity, shop roofs like a horizon, houses and
sky. Walls, stones, pavement, leaves, pieces of
paper, twigs, stones, rhythm. Pollen grass, sand in
between, uneven, worn grass, twigs, a row of trees
The neighbourhood to the left consists of rows of beside the field, thorn bushes, pavement, pieces
around seven to ten terraced houses. The rows stand of paper. Different colours. If you look carefully,
chaotic, messy. People walk the dog, get out of the
car, stroll to or return from the shops. Trees. Sky.
Den Eerdbrand nursing home. Visiting grandma,
grandma died a few days ago. She is made-up,
lying in her room, the awning is lowered, bouquets
with ribbons on the table. Her mouth looks
strange. She spent the night lying here alone. The
sun is low. The awning raised. From inside with a
button by the window. On the windowsill, a plant
with pink flower. Long dark green leaves and a
supporting stick in the middle for the flower. Black
shiny ceramic pot. View of the neighbourhood,
terraced houses, the shopping centre, a lot of sky,
dark roof tiles, roofs, light brick houses, rows,
backlighting, pink flower, sky. The streets look
dark, or rather: indiscernible in the backlight.
Grandma never saw the bouquets on the table.
Though she had seen the pink plant and the sky
and the terraced houses and the roofs and the sky.
Through the window frame, at the table in the
chair, arms on the armrests, the view of the pink
plant, the trees, through the glass.
Beyond the glass, cold air, beyond the clouds it’s
colder still. I look with her.
Outside the frame, we live no more, but we have
looked through the frame, we were in the frame,
the chair in the room, arms on the armrests, the
view through the window, the view through the
space, the flight into sky, over the pink plant, over
the trees, through the glass. Countable days. I take
a photo of the flower with the view behind it.
Outside in the hallway, brown bricks, rough grey
pointing, dark doors, dark-brown doorposts,
nameplates, large table, flower arrangement,
display case with glass figurines. At the back, a
store of sitting chairs, walking frames, sickbeds.
Many windows here. Dark framed view of the flat
next door, trees that reach this height, branches
at the same height, not too far away, through the
glass, branches with a pattern of bricks, balustrade,
frames of windows and doors, through, behind.
Returning home, to Rotterdam, but now leaving
Eindhoven via the other side, past the Ir. Ottenbad,
the Achtse Barrier, over the Boschdijk to the
motorway.
Along the way, a lot of green, beautiful skies.
CLUB DONNY #3 2009 > 33
DONNY’s FaVOUrites
boards oF canada
Boards of Canada (commonly abbreviated BOC) are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers
Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin Sandison. Boards of Canada’s music is reminiscent of the warm, scratchy,
artificial sounds of 1970s media and contains themes of childhood, nostalgia and the natural world. Michael and
Marcus have mentioned the documentary films of the National Film Board of Canada, from which the group’s
name is derived, as a source of inspiration.
Club Donny is a biannual magazine
on the personal experience of nature
in the urban environment presented
by Frank Bruggeman, Ernst van
der Hoeven and Ben Laloua/Didier
Pascal.
Trees
www.eaTocK.coM/projecT/Trees
Vandalised trees reoriented, creating new landscapes and giving the trees a new reality
PAGE 01 / 36 Maastricht, Nudist
camp at Marres, Maria Pask
PAGE 02 / 35 Paramaribo,
Suriname, Jeroen Jongeleen
TEXTPAGE 03 Bulbs, Jente
Posthuma
TEXTPAGE 04 Two Friends Meet
in Milton Keynes, Dirk Snelders &
Peter Lloyd
TEXTPAGE 05 4 F-ER, Maria Pask
TEXTPAGE 06 On Variegation
PAGE 07 / 30 Mexico City, Museo
Nacional de Antropología, Andreas
Schöfl
PAGE 08 / 29 London, Regent’s
Park, Germaine Kruip
PAGE 09 / 28 Noordoostpolder,
Rianne Makkink
PAGE 10 / 27 Wageningen, Lulo
Naranjilla at University, Willem
Hoebink
PAGE 11 / 26 Rotterdam, The
garden of Geertje, Frank Bruggeman
PAGE 12 / 25 Berlin, Ostkreuz, Rob
van der Nol
PAGE 13 / 24 Laren, Garden at De
Leeuwerik, Bart Julius Peters
PAGE 14 / 23 Amsterdam,
Sloterpark, Stephan Keppel
PAGE 15 / 22 Napels, Padre Pio
Shrine, Patricia Pulles
PAGE 16 / 21 Rusia, Rusia IV
(sa 15-10), Ine Lamers
PAGE 17 / 20 Norway, Barbara
Helmer
PAGE 18 / 19 Arnhem, Blooming
Prunus, Marten Terpstra
TEXTPAGE 31 On Variegation
TEXTPAGE 32 Critical Nature,
Jason Coburn
TEXTPAGE 33 Round Trip to
Grandma, Jack Segbars
TEXTPAGE 34 Donny’s Favourites
Made in deTroiT
Teen MoMs aT The caTherine Ferguson acadeMy
Catherine Ferguson is located in an impoverished neighborhood off Martin Luther King Boulevard, near I-96.
It’s a Detroit public school for teen mothers and pregnant girls run by the charismatic scholar Aseneth Andrews.
In addition to the school’s main focus – placing teen moms in college and teaching them life skills along with
academics – the academy also runs a full-fledged farm under the direction of science teacher Paul Weertz.
Beside the student-built barn is a large field for horses, goats, chickens, a sheep and other animals, surrounded
by lush gardens belonging to individual students, a beehive and a fruit orchard.
See also the documentory Made in Detroit by moviemakers couple Mascha and Manfred Poppenks.
a MusT see
chelsea Flower show
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is the ultimate event in the gardening year. It sets the latest gardening trends,
features the newest and most desirable gardening products and creates an explosion of colours and scent.The
dates for the 2009 show are 19-23 May.
Miss MarMalade’s hauTe conFiTure
www.MissMarMalade.nl
Order your favorite marmalade
absoluTely aMazing
how anT subTerrain sTrucTure’s looKs liKe?
www.youTube.coM/waTch?v=ozKbd2p2piu
NOTE: THE ANT COLONY WAS ABANDONED!!! A research that finds out how one of the subterranian ants
structures looks like, its just amazing, can’t stop watching this wonderful creatures, love them...
dear Mr. presidenT,
www.Michaelpollan.coM
Michael Pollan (1955), professor at Berkeley and foodgoeroe on post-industrial farming, underlines in a letter to
farmer in chief Mr President Obama the importance of the reform of the entire food system as one of the highest
priorities of his administration: ‘unless you do, you will not be able to make significant progress on the health
care crisis, energy independence or climate change…’ He also pleas for a vegetable garden at the White House.
ciTy oF sound
www.ciTyoFsound.coM
City of Sound is the personal site of UK writer and designer Dan Hill. On his site, you’ll find a smart mix of
architecture-, design-, and culture-related commentary, with enough eclectic tangents to keep the most webweary reader off-balance and intrigued.
dreaM
swedish spa FolKlore aT MidsuMMernighT
Experience swedish summer at Medivi Brunn, the oldest nordic Spa (founded 1678), with hotel, restaurant,
orchestre, theater, pottery and more... located at the Vättern lake between Motala and Askersund.
vreeKens zaden
www.vreeKen.nl
Wonderfull shop for the addicted gardener
succulenTen
www.cacTus-Mall.coM
The cactus and succulent plant mall (CSPM) is an Internet resource for all growers of cacti and succulent
plants. It is regularly updated with information on cactus and succulent societies and suppliers of plants, seeds
and literature on cacti and succulents. The CSPM has developed and hosts webpages for cactus and succulent
organisations worldwide (138 domains + 80 web sites within cactus-mall.com + 120 advertisers). It also aims
to maintain as complete a list of web pages and other cactus and succulent related Internet facilities as possible.
The CSPM is maintained by Suzanne and Tony Mace.
34 < CLUB DONNY #3 2009
TRANSLATION / Mike Ritchie
PRINTING / Thieme MediaCenter
PUBLISHER / episode publishers
www.episode-publishers.nl
Club Donny
[email protected]
© 2009 Club Donny
The authors and contributors.
Reproduction without permission
prohibited.
This publication was made possible
by Municipality of Rotterdam
Department of Art and Culture.