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Winkels to the Left, Winkels to the Right: Thoughts from Places, Antwerp

2011-05-13 · John · watch on YouTube · Personal life · documentary visit

Lower-confidence wave

2011 videos did not pass the QA gate (17 %); their analysis is shown but less reliable.

In a Thoughts from Places travelogue John takes the slow train from Amsterdam to Antwerp for a day away from the internet to write, arguing that reading and writing books have become counter-cultural in the social media era, and tours the Antwerp zoo.

What is said

00:00:00 — Slow train from Amsterdam to Antwerp for a day without internet to write; writing needs concentration and facing boredom; books as counter-cultural in the social media era

  • ★★ The description says John spent the day working on the revision of his new novel, which comes out in March. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ John woke early on Thursday with nothing to do but write, and took the slow train from Amsterdam Central Station to Antwerp for time away from the internet to write. — 00:00:01
  • ★★★ John says writing, for him, involves little typing but requires a lot of concentration, and to concentrate you must face the specter of boredom without fear. — 00:00:14
  • ★★★ John argues that reading and writing books have become counter-cultural activities in the social media era, since books don't allow multitasking or update automatically. (hedged) — 00:00:26
  • ★★ John says that as much as he loves the internet, he is happiest when he is writing. — 00:00:35

00:00:41 — Arriving in Antwerp knowing nothing; following tourists to two closed old buildings; finding the zoo next to the station

  • ★★ Knowing nothing about Antwerp, John followed a guidebook-carrying tourist to two old buildings, both closed, then found the zoo back by the train station. (playful) — 00:00:48

00:01:11 — At the zoo: monkeys, puppy-sized elephants, a sleeping penguin, a soiled tortoise, giraffes behind a low fence

  • ★★ At the zoo John saw monkeys, small elephants, tigers, a sleeping penguin, fish, a tortoise with another tortoise's feces on its shoulder, and giraffes behind an ankle-high fence. (playful) — 00:01:11 · puppy sized elephant

00:01:58 — The station's escalators; the cancelled ('afgeschaft') train; writing all the way home; a day without the internet; sign-off

  • ★ Back at the station John rode an escalator that goes up, then straight, then up again, and jokingly calls it the world's coolest escalator. (playful) — 00:01:58
  • ★★ John's train home was cancelled ('afgeschaft', abolished); another came an hour later and he wrote all the way home, his day without the internet. — 00:02:12

Humor (significant)

  • John tells a tortoise with another tortoise's feces on his shoulder to brush it off. — 00:01:36 > «he either didn't understand me or he was making a fashion statement.»
  • John filmed the giraffes for ten minutes and they kept looking at him as if to say... — 00:01:40 > «no matter how long you leave that camera on, we are not going to mount each other»
  • Amazed by an escalator that goes up, straight and up again, John asks if the Belgians patented it. — 00:02:02 > «We must wrest this technology from their tiny polylingual hands!»

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