Hey friendos! Before you think I misspelled the title of this newsletter, I want to assure you the title is completely intentional. If a pre-teen’s stupid inside joke is enough to deter you from reading a memory (and mystery!) from my childhood, I suggest you turn back now. Otherwise, welcome back!
How Am I Doing?
Good! I’m planning a trip to the Netherlands to visit friends and family for the holidays. I travel back and forth about twice a year now, and each time it comes with some complex thoughts and feelings. There’s joy in seeing people that I’ve missed. But there’s also a bit of melancholy from observing those same people, who were once a part of my daily life, move on without me.
I understand, of course, I also grow and change and it would be ridiculous to expect others to be frozen in time, waiting for old Daan to come back before the show starts up again. But I guess, in a way, I do expect that. In my head, my trips to the Netherlands represent a return to an old life. An old home. Where things are the same as I’ve left them. Now, when I come back and notice that my friends have new partners, new houses, new looks, and a new taste in music, it feels like someone went through my childhood room and rearranged all my stuff.
But as I write this, I realize that… that’s a good thing! Why should my childhood room be kept the way it was? Are there not other people who need a space to sleep? I’m happy that my friends got new relationships, new places to live, new jobs and that life goes on while I’m only half a thousand kilometers south. I’m happy I can return to a place that’s not stagnant, and that has news and updates when I visit. It doesn’t deny me my memories, does it? So in an effort to dispel my melancholy, let me share with you a little mystery from my hometown.
The Woodworker
‘De Houtwerker’ (lit. the Woodworker) is a massive, 4-meter tall sculpture built by Slavomir Miletić and ultimately exhibited in Zaandam. Locals might not know the name or history of the statue, but will for sure have seen this giant, seemingly naked man holding an invisible tool somewhere in town. Its history is interesting but irrelevant to my experience as a child. Sufficed it to say, for a huge ass statue, it moved around more than one might think, making its way from Amsterdam to Zaandam through a lengthy process of bureaucratic hot potato.
When I first encountered the thing, it was placed right next to my high school. A towering naked man with a suggestive pose is an easy target for a bunch of prepubescent brats, so it was quickly dubbed ‘De Rukkende Reus‘. Literally ‘The Wanking Giant‘, but the alliteration doesn’t translate well, unfortunately.
Apart from being a recognizable landmark, I didn’t pay it much mind. I dropped out of said high school and started attending a different one, and so the giant was easily forgotten. Then, we moved out to a different spot in Zaandam. Lo and behold, there it was again! The exact same statue, but placed squarely next to my house this time. I was surprised, surely, but nobody seemed to care enough to investigate. Back then, I dismissed it as misremembering the location.
Like many teenagers, I hated school. I still firmly believe that putting a bunch of kids in a room and overloading them with information and homework leads to nothing but disasters for many of them. Naturally, I sought an escape. I formed a band with some of my classmates. We also figured out we could escape detention as long as we told the detention guy we had band practice. This went on for a couple of years.
We changed the place we had band practice a couple of times to save on money. At some point, we ended up at a studio run by some other young local musicians, who are to this day, good friends of mine. Funnily enough, detention guy is actually the uncle of one of them, so before I ever hung out with the musician, he already influenced my music career! Shout out to Gerard. Anyway, we went to this studio, at the edge of town and guess what I saw there? You guessed it, a giant statue of what is supposed to be a woodworker.
The Mystery
By this time, I was perplexed. Why is this sculpture following me? How can it follow me? It must weigh tons! So I decided to investigate. I needed to know the motive behind this cocksure colossus’s insistence on trailing me.
First, I checked the one near my house. It seemed to be identical to the concrete statue from my memories. Then, I went to my old high school. Sure enough, the statue was gone. So it had followed me! Finally, I went to the one near the studio. There is another one of the statues there. But something is different… This one is made of bronze!
There has to be some kind of significance to this, I thought to myself. I spent some time poring over a map to pinpoint each location I’ve seen the giant in. By itself, it didn’t yield much. I could not let this be the end. I had only just begun my descent into madness! So I tried something else, I went to each of the locations and checked the direction each statue was pointing at.
I drew a line on the map for each of them. Of course, one of them was moved, so I didn’t know exactly what orientation it was in. I couldn’t find any pictures of it either. So I drew a line from memory. The three lines intersected somewhere nearby. I managed to triangulate something. But what? The lines intersected on a place called ‘Snackbar het Trefpunt‘, a chip shop whose name translates to… ‘The Meeting Point‘.
The Reality
That was enough for me. I decided the Meeting Point was a chippy with a secret treasure or cult in the basement and put the whole mystery on the back burner for a couple of years. Later, I did some actual research; I found out about the history of the statue, why he was moved so many times, and why he has a bronze brother.
After being rejected by Zaandam without even seeing the initial model, the artist constructed it from concrete in Amsterdam. It was then bought by merchants and moved to Waterloopplein. In something that I can only describe as a jealous rage, Zaandam inhabitants petitioned to get it back and so it was moved to my old high school.
The sculpture was always meant to be bronze, however. I guess they finally gave in and made a bronze one near the studio. After that, they moved the concrete one next to my house because a new art center opened there. As far as I can tell, it has no relation whatsoever to the Meeting Point. In fact, I’m pretty sure I misaligned most of the giants’ directions. I don’t think their lines would ever meet.
But none of that matters. There’s a treasure underneath a chip shop in Zaandam and no one can tell me otherwise.
What Am I Doing?
Other than reminiscing, I’ve published a vlog! Go check it out if you haven’t already and don’t be shy to leave a comment on it. Also, it would be great if you could share it around on “the socials™”, because I’m not very online these days. I’m dropping another one next week I think.
Other than that I’ve been working on my budget Pokémon game, now tentatively called Clysmoids! I’ve honed in on a cute but post-apocalyptic setting, where you manage a spa for mutants. It’s a portmonteau (kind of) of cataclysm (apocalyptic) and the -oids suffix to resemble something like humans, but not quite.
Why Am I Doing? (this)
I talk about why I’m doing vlogs in my vlog as well as previous newsletters, so I won’t repeat that. I do want to say that, I’m glad I do more serialized content now. This newsletter and the vlog and maybe other things in the future. It’s been great to have a weekly deadline and feedback to keep me motivated on actually putting stuff out there. So many projects used to live and die in my notebook because I didn’t share them. Now, at least some people will get to see that I’m not sitting on my hands!
Alright, that was a long one, but we’re done now. I’m not sure if I’ll be writing anything for the rest of the year, so if I don’t see you anymore. ✨ Happy new years! ✨ And whatever holiday you might be celebrating.