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Post by Bonobo on Feb 5, 2017 0:30:06 GMT 1
When you go out in a Żnin nightclub you might meet these ladies Peter, are you fascinated more by the town or the ladies?  You have never posted so many pics about such a little and let`s be frank, unimportant town in Poland. |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 5, 2017 1:03:13 GMT 1
Dear Bo,
I love provincial, rural towns and villages Bo and hamlets too. I come from a nation with a lot of provinces, regions, and a lot of small towns, villages and hamlets with a strong regional character. A large variety of dialects, regional languages and regional identities. The latter is so strong that you can hardly talk about real Dutchmen. You can talk about Hollanders (West of the Netherlands), Frisians (Northerners), Brabanders and Limburgers (Southerners), Zeelanders (South-Westerners), Saxons (people from the Eastern provinces Gelderland, OverIjssel, Drenthe and Groningen), the Islanders (Zeelandish islands, South-Holland Islands and the Wadden Islands or Frisian islands in the North). Many small towns and villages have their own identity, dialect and pride. Probably there comes my fascination with little and unimportant towns, villages and hamlets.
I experience the same in Flanders (Belgium) and in the Ardennes mountains in the Wallonia region of Belgium where we had our holiday house from 1978 until 2002. I spend there a lot of holidays in that holiday house in a small Wallon Muncipality Ferrières, in the village Burnontige. I loved the insignificant hamlets and villages in the neighbourhood with their ancient farms and farm castles (a typical Belgian phenomenon). Insignificant hamlets and villages like Tier de Férrières, Villers-Saint-Gertrude, Ernonheid, Izier, Le Trau, Vieux-Fourneau and Ozo. In the Zeeland Rhombus shaped Peninsula of my youth Walcheren I loved and love the small insignificant villages and hamlets like Dishoek, Koudekerke, Biggekerke, Hoogelande, Buttinge, Poppendamme, Meliskerke, Aagtekerke and Groot Valkenisse. I like the local diversity, the farmlife, small town people next to the large city culture I am more connected to due to my parents Warsaw and Rotterdam city roots. In my first 20 years in Zeeland I learned to know the farm, fishermen, harbour and sailor (commercial navy people) next to the local workers and middle class. I crossed the Westerschelde several times with my bike on the ferry to Breskens and cycled through Zeeuws-Vlaanderen (Part of the Dutch province of Zeeland) to Belgium to visit Brugge, Knokke-Heist and the costal town of De Haan in West-Flanders, I loved to cycle through that part of Zeeland and Belgium through many hamlets, villages and towns. And to stop in many of these places to rest, eat and drink and enjoy the view of farms, town houses, local churches or old villa's and buildings.
In the case of Żnin I am probably more interested in the Polish ladies, but the combination of the charm of a small town and local beauties can be refreshing.
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by jeanne on Feb 5, 2017 2:11:25 GMT 1
Hi Pieter,
If there is one thing that one can say about you, it is that you have a real appreciation for all aspects of life!
I find THAT refreshing!!
Jeanne
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Post by pjotr on Feb 5, 2017 22:09:08 GMT 1
Dear Bo, I love provincial, rural towns and villages Bo and hamlets too. I come from a nation with a lot of provinces, regions, and a lot of small towns, villages and hamlets with a strong regional character. A large variety of dialects, regional languages and regional identities. The latter is so strong that you can hardly talk about real Dutchmen. You can talk about Hollanders (West of the Netherlands), Frisians (Northerners), Brabanders and Limburgers (Southerners), Zeelanders (South-Westerners), Saxons (people from the Eastern provinces Gelderland, OverIjssel, Drenthe and Groningen), the Islanders (Zeelandish islands, South-Holland Islands and the Wadden Islands or Frisian islands in the North). Many small towns and villages have their own identity, dialect and pride. Probably there comes my fascination with little and unimportant towns, villages and hamlets. I experience the same in Flanders (Belgium) and in the Ardennes mountains in the Wallonia region of Belgium where we had our holiday house from 1978 until 2002. I spend there a lot of holidays in that holiday house in a small Wallon Muncipality Ferrières, in the village Burnontige. I loved the insignificant hamlets and villages in the neighbourhood with their ancient farms and farm castles (a typical Belgian phenomenon). Insignificant hamlets and villages like Tier de Férrières, Villers-Saint-Gertrude, Ernonheid, Izier, Le Trau, Vieux-Fourneau and Ozo. In the Zeeland Rhombus shaped Peninsula of my youth Walcheren I loved and love the small insignificant villages and hamlets like Dishoek, Koudekerke, Biggekerke, Hoogelande, Buttinge, Poppendamme, Meliskerke, Aagtekerke and Groot Valkenisse. I like the local diversity, the farmlife, small town people next to the large city culture I am more connected to due to my parents Warsaw and Rotterdam city roots. In my first 20 years in Zeeland I learned to know the farm, fishermen, harbour and sailor (commercial navy people) next to the local workers and middle class. I crossed the Westerschelde several times with my bike on the ferry to Breskens and cycled through Zeeuws-Vlaanderen (Part of the Dutch province of Zeeland) to Belgium to visit Brugge, Knokke-Heist and the costal town of De Haan in West-Flanders, I loved to cycle through that part of Zeeland and Belgium through many hamlets, villages and towns. And to stop in many of these places to rest, eat and drink and enjoy the view of farms, town houses, local churches or old villa's and buildings. In the case of Żnin I am probably more interested in the Polish ladies, but the combination of the charm of a small town and local beauties can be refreshing. Cheers, Pieter Dear Bonobo, I do believe you are a Polish version of me. You did and do the same in Poland. You also travel through the country and visit a lot of cities, towns, villages, urban agglomerations, hamlets, rural area's, wild life parks, periferies of cities, and have a particular interest in infrastructure, old and new buildings, Graffiti and murals, local people and etc. In your case you have your background as a dedicated father and familyman, teacher and student counsellor, and as a person with interest in the Polish society you live in and the culture, people, politics, psychology and sociology that go with that. I am a dualist in nature, and that dualism is radical. One side of me is impatient with the provincial Eastern city I live in (Arnhem) and loves cosmopolitan Metropoles (like Warsaw, Berlin, New York, Cape Town, London and Paris), or larger Dutch cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. (Like the Cracovian Bo who likes and admires Warsaw) The Cosmopolitian in me is an internationalist, progressive, radical liberal, multi-cultural, pluralistic and 'modern'. The other side of me loves nature, rest, contemplation (I have a nearly Monk, hermit side in me, which reminds me of Narcissus, the young teacher at the cloister school in Hermann Hesse's novel Narcissus and Goldmund (German: Narziß und Goldmund; also published as Death and the Lover), the solitude of a disciplined provincial life, tradition and a conservative mindset. This conservative provincial side of me loves rural life, old churches in tiny hamlets, monastries, contemplation, silence, woods/forests, mountains, castles, old ruins, archeology, Old Dutch and Old Polish culture and maybe, amybe is partly polarized in the Dutch sense, in the sense that I have some roots in the Roman-Catholic Dutch pillar and also roots in the general, liberal conservative, secular-humanist (Free Thinking) Bourgeois pillar (Grand Burgher) in the Netherlands (due to the social group and class my father family comes from). I live with this complex dualism, but can coop with it. I can't live without both the big city and the silence of the rural countryside, woods and the traditional side of the Netherlands of the villages, hamlets with a few old tiny farms and small towns. But if I was forced to choose I would only be able to live in a large city, because I don't have the small provincial town mentality. I am not a provincial chap (I have Rotterdam and Warsaw genes and dna    ) That is the typical *unrest or quintessence of people of mixed heritage. (Dutch and Polish in my case and Danish-Frisian/German in Karl's case in the other Forum) The constant interaction between genes, families, nations, interests and sometimes conflicting interests. Certainly the case in the situation of the Netherlands and Poland, which have different positions and affiliations in Europe. In my view Poland is much more monolythic, more a one culture nation with one dominant religion and one dominant majority. The Netherlands is linguistically, social-cultural and geographically more divided. The Dominant Holland and Utrecht regions in the West and Center forming the Randstad are an identity inside the identity the Netherlands. The succesful Brabant cities in the South (Eindhoven, Den Bosch, Helmond, Tilburg and Breda) are another financial-economical, technological and cultural entity. The Northern provinces form some unity and my own Gelderland Province forms an Eurregion with Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia) in Germany. The Dutch language, infrastructure (Highways and railways), education and press and media keeps us a little bit together over here. But in general a Eastern Gelderland Saxon person has little in common with a Western Hollander. The Hollander is the dominant, direct, slightly arrogant, dynamic and typical Dutchman, foreigners see as the typical Dutchman. Jeanne met them and described these Dutchmen. I can deal with their intractability, insolence, lack of manners, impatience, direct -sometimes confrontational- sense of humor and the fact that they are very present wherever they are. Flemish Belgian people don't like that Hollander directness. The Western Holland (Northerners for the Flemish) people are the fast speakers, the assertive people, cunning, dominant and arrogant people. (The Flemish people do not distinghuish and therefor all the Dutch people get the same label as the Western Hollanders I described above here). I wonder if various Slavic people also have the same opinions about Slavic neighbours? From Polish family I heard that Warsaw people have some opinions about Poznan people. Poznan people are disciplined like Prussians, very well organised, trade and business oriented, in the eyes of the Warsaw family. Poles will have certain opinions about other Poles from certain regions. The Gorals of the Polish highlands, Silesians, Kashubians and the Ukrainians from South-East Poland? I wonder how Poles think about Czechs, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Russians, and further away the Serbs, Bosnians, Croats and Slovenes. The West-Germanic Dutch people have their opinions and visions about other Germanic peoples; the Germans, Belgian Felmish, Belgian Walloons -a French speaking Germanic people-, Austrians, Swiss Germans, English people, and Scandinavian people. Poles will have the same thing with other Slavic people. The anti-thesis between big city people and rural provincial townsfolk you have in any nation. In every country restless, creative small town boys like me move to the capital or other large cities to study, live, go out and work. People from all parts of Poland moved and move to Warsaw to start a new life, or move to Krakow to study at the university there. They do the same as I did in the Netherlands. Going back to my roots in the small Zeeland town of my parents is always a journey back into time (1970-1990). Amsterdam (1990-1992), The Hague (1991-1992 one year art academy study there) and 25 years in Arnhem (1992-2017) changed me completely. To say or state that that is an entirely Dutch phenomenon or development is nonsense. Travels to Poland in the seventies, eighties and in 2004 and 2006 changed me too, because they showed me the DDR (East-Germany we had to travel through to get into the Polish Peoples Republic) and Poland. Bonobo, you posted several interesting and good threads here about English language education in Poland over here. About your own profession as English teacher, about your highschool pupils and university students, about your colleages and etc. How you teach your sons, and how English is tought in Polish schools. You posted about the famous methodology of prof. Henryk Krzyżanowski of the Poznań University. I was ' positively' infected by the English language and culture due to the fact that my Dutch grandparents from Rotterdam were anglophile people who read British english literature, newspapers and magazines. My father had British literature in house next to French-, German and ofcourse Dutch literature. TV always had to be educational, cultural, educational, informative, instructive. So few entertainment or soap opera's and a lot of Shakespeare theatrical plays of the BBC (On Dutch or Belgian Public tv), historical British tv series (often with rural themes; castles, villages, hamlets, British social life in the small town), British BBC detectives ( Agatha Christie, Midsummer murders, Inspector Morse and etc.). Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, and also some American writers like Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin and others were in my fathers bookcase. Next to that there was (thank god) a translated section with Russian and Polish writers. My fantasy and imagination was triggered and fed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Tadeusz Konwicki ( I read ' A Minor Apocalypse' ( Mała apokalipsa) with great dedication and fun. It was tragic, dramatic and hilariously funny in the same time -sometimes I had tears in my eyes of laughter, because the Dutch translation of this book showed a bizar ironical and cynical sense of humor. The Polish anti-communist underground want to make a hero and martyr of the main character of the book the Polish writer with a writers block. The writer is annoyed and don't want to be a hero/martyr and therefor is stuck inbetween the Communist authorities censorship and pressure one one side and the pressure of the Polish underground on the other side, who demands that he lights himself in front of a communist parade in the city with communist party leaders. This was one of the most humorous books I have ever read in my life, and in the same time deeply tragic. This novel and other Polish novels is the reason I would like to be able to read, speak and write Polish. But communicating in German and English with Polish familymembers went well) , Jerzy Andrzejewski and Czesław Miłosz ( The Captive Mind (1953)). A lot of books I read were translated books. I watched and researched carefully if the translators were good and had good critics of the literary press for their translations of the slavic originals. Often these guys were people who studied slavic studies at the universities of Amsterdam or Leiden. Cheers, Pieter * Sometimes you wonder how would my life have been in Poland? Maybe it is a silly or useless question, but that question is there anyhow. Sometimes I wonder how my life would have been if my parents had stayed in the same town I was born in in a forest region in the East of the Netherlands ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeldoorn ). |
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Post by jeanne on Feb 5, 2017 23:48:29 GMT 1
... Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene... and others were in my fathers bookcase... Both excellent Catholic authors! I approve! Jeanne |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 5, 2017 23:49:27 GMT 1
Bonobo,
I have to correct my previous post with some self criticism. I don't believe you are a Polish version of me, because you have traveled through Poland and photographed many parts of Poland far more than I ever did in the Netherlands. My traveling through my country is far more limited and often limits itself to the triangle Arnhem-Amsterdam-Vlissingen.
This Forum showed that through the years you traveled to many parts of Poland and took images of the most important cities, towns, regions, mountains, rural country life, lake area's, religious life in Poland, Polish folk culture, political demonstrations and Polish history. For instance the historical images of Polish churches and synagogues.
It would take me years or decades in the Netherlands to catch up with your travel experience in your own home country Poland. Cause of that in my case is the fact that I spend many holidays, vacations, student trips and city tours and vacations abroad in other countries. We Dutch like to escape our densly populated country to travel abroad.
Fact is that you can easily find less densly populated and more quiet regions in the Netherlands too. But it seems that Dutch people do not only want to escape from the densly populated area's, but also from Dutch culture, people and atmosphere every now and then. Rest means in the Dutch perspective being in a German-, French-, Spanish-, Greek-, Italian- or Turkish speaking environment.
I have a few decades left to examin all the regions and provinces of my own country and more cities and regions in the country of my mothers birth. I would like to see more places than Poznań, Warsaw and Kraków in Poland. These are the three places I have been to in Poland and I love them. But it would be nice to see Łódź, Wrocław, Gdańsk, Lublin, Białystok, Toruń and the Masurian Lake District (Polish: Pojezierze Mazurskie) one day too.
In my profession and background it would be great to make a documentary about Poland with television. Doing TV camerawork or photography in Poland. Using some knowledge about Polish history, culture and politics. A fair, balanced and good image about Poland. As a person you are allowed to have dreams and Utopic ideas which are harmless. My dream or Utopic idea would be to make a documentary about present day Poland for the VPRO broadcast corporation.
A lot of CNN, Deutsche Welle, International - SPIEGEL ONLINE, Euronews, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Fox News, my own Dutch NOS, France 24, ZDF, ARD, WDR, Al Arabiya, I24, RT, VRT (Belgian Flemish public tv), and other Western chanals all give short sided, cliché images of Poland. I would like to talk to all sides in Poland and show all opinions in that documentary. I would have to have a reliable Polish network of contacts, people from the Polish diaspora in the Netherlands, and the backing of the VPRO or another Dutch broadcaster to make such a documentary.
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by pjotr on Feb 5, 2017 23:56:42 GMT 1
Jeanne,
Evelyn Waugh's novels wouldn't have the approval of the Roman-Catholic clergy or believers, because it has an underlayer of homosexuality or bisexuality. My father liked Brideshead Revisited (1945) and the Brideshead Revisited (TV serial), which he watched with my mother. Impatient and stubborn teenage kid I was I didn't like the TV serial and read the novel with some difficulties for my Enlgish list for highschool. In the Netherlands you have to read several novels of a foreign language subject you have. So I read Brideshead Revisited, but didn't make a great impression on my English teacher who examined me about what I understood of the novel in my final English exams. Maybe I was to imature for the novel back then. I liked Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness (1899) better. That was one of the other English novels I read for my English oral exams.
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (/ˈɑːrθər ˈiːvlɪn ˈsɪndʒən wɔː/; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies and travel books. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer of books. His most famous works include the early satires Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934), the novel Brideshead Revisited (1945) and the Second World War trilogy Sword of Honour (1952–61). Waugh is recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the English language in the 20th century.
The son of a publisher, Waugh was educated at Lancing College and then at Hertford College, Oxford, and briefly worked as a schoolmaster before he became a full-time writer. As a young man, he acquired many fashionable and aristocratic friends, and developed a taste for country house society. In the 1930s, he travelled extensively, often as a special newspaper correspondent in which capacity he reported from Abyssinia at the time of the 1935 Italian invasion. He served in the British armed forces throughout the Second World War (1939–1945), first in the Royal Marines and then in the Royal Horse Guards. He was a perceptive writer who used the experiences and the wide range of people he encountered in his works of fiction, generally to humorous effect. Waugh's detachment was such that he fictionalised his own mental breakdown, which occurred in the early 1950s.
After the failure of his first marriage, Waugh converted to Catholicism in 1930. His traditionalist stance led him to strongly oppose all attempts to reform the Church, and the changes by the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) greatly disturbed his sensibilities, especially the introduction of the vernacular Mass. That blow to his religious traditionalism, his dislike for the welfare state culture of the postwar world and the decline of his health, darkened his final years, but he continued to write. To the public, Waugh displayed a mask of indifference, but he was capable of great kindness to those whom he considered to be his friends. After his death in 1966, he acquired a following of new readers through the film and television versions of his works, such as the television serial Brideshead Revisited (1981).
Conversion to Catholicism
On 29 September 1930, Waugh was received into the Catholic Church. That shocked his family and surprised some of his friends, but he had contemplated the step for some time. He had lost his Anglicanism at Lancing and had led an irreligious life at Oxford, but there are references in his diaries from the mid-1920s to religious discussion and regular churchgoing. On 22 December 1925, Waugh wrote: "Claud and I took Audrey to supper and sat up until 7 in the morning arguing about the Roman Church". The entry for 20 February 1927 includes, "I am to visit a Father Underhill about being a parson". Throughout the period, Waugh was influenced by his friend Olivia Plunket-Greene, who had converted in 1925 and of whom Waugh later wrote, "She bullied me into the Church". It was she who led him to Father Martin D'Arcy, a Jesuit, who persuaded Waugh "on firm intellectual convictions but little emotion" that "the Christian revelation was genuine". In 1949, Waugh explained that his conversion followed his realisation that life was "unintelligible and unendurable without God".
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by pjotr on Feb 6, 2017 0:11:51 GMT 1
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene OM CH (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991), better known by his pen name Graham Greene, was an English novelist regarded by some as one of the great writers of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or " entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted, in 1967, for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Through 67 years of writings, which included over 25 novels, he explored the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world, often through a Catholic perspective. Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a Roman Catholic novelist, rather than as a novelist who happened to be Catholic, Catholic religious themes are at the root of much of his writing, especially the four major Catholic novels: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, and The End of the Affair; which are regarded as " the gold standard" of the Catholic novel. Several works, such as The Confidential Agent, The Third Man, The Quiet American, Our Man in Havana, and The Human Factor, also show Greene's avid interest in the workings and intrigues of international politics and espionage. Personal lifeAfter meeting his future wife Vivien Dayrell-Browning, Greene was baptised into the Catholic faith on 26 February 1926, and they were married on 15 October 1927 at St Mary's Church, Hampstead, North London. The Greenes had two children, Lucy Caroline (born 1933) and Francis (born 1936). In his discussions with Father Trollope, the priest to whom he went for instruction in Catholicism, Greene argued with the cleric " on the ground of dogmatic atheism", as Greene's primary difficulty with religion was what he termed the " if" surrounding God's existence. He found, however, that " after a few weeks of serious argument the 'if' was becoming less and less improbable", and Greene finally was converted and baptised after vigorous arguments initially with the priest in which he defended atheism, or at least the " if" of agnosticism. Late in life, however, Greene took to calling himself a " Catholic agnostic", or even at times a " Catholic atheist". Beginning in 1946, Greene had an affair with Catherine Walston, the wife of Harry Walston, a wealthy farmer and future life peer. That relationship is generally thought to have informed the writing of The End of the Affair, published in 1951, when the affair came to an end. Greene had left his family in 1947, but in accordance with Catholic teaching, Vivien refused to grant him a divorce, and they remained married until Greene's death in 1991. Greene had also had several other affairs and sexual encounters during their marriage, and in later years Vivien remarked, " With hindsight, he was a person who should never have married." He had remained estranged from his wife and children, and remarked in his later years, " I think my books are my children." Greene had suffered from manic depression( bipolar disorder).
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Post by jeanne on Feb 6, 2017 0:31:52 GMT 1
Jeanne, Evelyn Waugh's novels wouldn't have the approval of the Roman-Catholic clergy or believers, because it has an underlayer of homosexuality or bisexuality. I don't know that much about him; besides Brideshead Revisited I've only read one other work, but I do know his name is on every list of "good" Catholic literature that I have seen...so he must meet approval! Apparently, his authentic Catholic themes override any other questionable ones. |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 6, 2017 1:35:40 GMT 1
Dear Jeanne, For some reason I have witnessed that many homosexuals felt attracted to the Roman-Catholic church. In my opinion often because Mary is important for them. Through the years I have witnessed several homosexuals who converted to the Roman-Catholic faith. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_ReveNotable lesbian, gay and bisexual CatholicsA number of influential Italian Catholic artists of the Renaissance and the Baroque who were notable for their religious paintings and sculpture were considered to have been homosexual or bisexual. These include Donatello, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. In addition, Michelangelo Buonarotti was noted for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel under which popes are elected to this day.  Andy Warhol greats Pope John Paul the 2nd in RomeAndy Warhol was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art; and whose homosexuality strongly influenced his work. He was a Ruthenian Catholic and regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York to practice his faith; describing himself as a religious person and regularly attending mass.  Andy WarholIt is considerably frustrating that Mr. Warhol was an ardent, believing, and practicing Ruthenian Rite Catholic. Such an immense failure of the intellect makes him impossible to idolize in precisely the manner we wish to idolize him: As a new-age, secular artiste, champion of unexamined homosexuality and all things hip, enemy of the repressed, the medieval, and the ancient. Now truly, Mr. Warhol was openly, undeniably gay, a laudable feat in a time less friendly to men with same-sex attraction. But to fashion the Wigged Wonder into our 21st-century, objectified caricature of a homosexual does him violence. According to the wonderful book The Religious Art of Andy Warhol, by Jane Daggett Dillenberger, the man remained celibate, a fact revealed by his own declaration of virginity and at his eulogy, where it was recalled that “ as a youth he was withdrawn and reclusive, devout and celibate, and beneath the disingenuous mask that is how he at the heart remained.” He deliberately concealed who he was to the public — famously answering questions with “ uh, no” or “ uh, yes” — and he certainly concealed the fact that he wore a cross on a chain around his neck, carried with him a missal and a rosary, and volunteered at the soup kitchen at the Church of Heavenly Rest in New York. He went to Mass — often to daily Mass — sitting at the back, unnoticed, awkwardly embarrassed lest anyone should see he crossed himself in “the Orthodox way” — from right shoulder to left instead of left to right. He financed his nephew’s studies for the priesthood, and — according to his eulogy — was responsible for at least one person’s conversion to the Catholic faith. Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–89) was an American photographer. From 1977 until 1980, Mapplethorpe was the lover of gay writer and Drummer magazine editor Jack Fritscher. He was brought up in a Roman Catholic household and despite later "lapsing", Catholicism continued to suffuse his art - particularly in the area of Catholic guilt and eroticism.  Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti SmithIn Britain, a number of late 19th-century authors who converted to Catholicism were gay or bisexual, among them Oscar Wilde, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Lord Alfred Douglas, Marc-André Raffalovich, Robert Hugh Benson, Frederick Rolfe and John Gray. These male writers sometimes found, in their Catholicism, a means of writing about their attraction to and desire for relationships with other men. Wilde, who had Catholic tendencies throughout his life and converted on his deathbed, wrote himself in De Profundis, during his imprisonment and hard labor, as akin to Christ embodying suffering, and invoked Christ's transformative power for the oppressed. Wilde's sometime lover, the poet John Gray was also a Catholic. Raffalovich compared the physicality and the ecstasy of devotion to Christ to same-sex erotic desire; Hopkins's work as well is strongly marked by physicality and eroticism in its religious references, and the poet, who was reminded of Christ by other men that he found beautiful, dwelt on the physicality of Christ's body and intimacy of his comfort and love. Radclyffe Hall, author of The Well of Loneliness, was also a convert to Catholicism. Joanne Glasgow writes that for Hall and other lesbians of the early twentieth century, such as Alice B. Toklas, the church's erasure of female sexuality offered a cover for lesbianism. Marcel Proust was one of the first European novelists to feature homosexuality openly and at length; and was himself considered to have been homosexual. Tennessee Williams was an American playwright and author of many stage classics. He believed that his work was full of deep Christian symbolism, and admitted loving " the beauty of the ritual in the Mass"; yet nevertheless thought the tenets of the Roman Catholic church themselves " ridiculous". David Berger (b. 1968) is a German theologian, author and gay activist. He taught as a professor at the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. However, since May 2013 he has been editor-in-chief of German biggest gay lifestyle-magazine MÄNNER (Berlin). Eve Tushnet is a lesbian Catholic author and blogger. She converted to Catholicism in 1998, and is celibate due to the Catholic Church's ban on sex outside heterosexual marriage. British conservative pundit Milo Yiannopoulos is a practicing Catholic and sexually active gay man. AcademicsJohn Boswell was a prominent historian and a professor at Yale University, and gay. Many of Boswell's studies focused on the issue of religion and homosexuality, specifically Christianity and homosexuality. Daniel A. Helminiak (b. 1942) is an American Catholic priest, theologian and author. He is currently a professor in the Department of Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology at the University of West Georgia, near Atlanta. From 1975 to 1978, he served as teaching assistant to Bernard Lonergan, S.J. (1904–1984), the philosopher, theologian, economist, and methodologist whom Newsweek styled the Thomas Aquinas of the 20th century.
Singers and musiciansJeanine Deckers (d. 1985) was known as The Singing Nun or Sœur Sourire. She was a Belgian singer-songwriter and was at one time a member of the Dominican Order. After leaving the order, she remained a practicing Catholic. Some 14 years later, she began a lesbian relationship with a lifelong friend.  Vaslav Nijinsky performing in a ballet in Paris, 1911.Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish descent, cited as the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century. He was romantically involved with Sergei Diaghilev.  Pope Pius Receives LiberaceThe pianist and entertainer Liberace was recognized during his career with two Emmy Awards, six gold albums and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He had a four-year relationship with Scott Thorson. Described as a devout Catholic, he was received in a private audience by Pope Pius XII.  Josephine BakerJosephine Baker was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, or to become a world-famous entertainer. She was bisexual, having had relationships with men and women. In her later years, Baker converted to Roman Catholicism.  Francis PoulencFrancis Poulenc was a French composer and pianist. He was predominantly gay, yet struggled with his sexuality. Following the death of a close friend in the 1930s, he rediscovered his Roman Catholic faith and replaced the ironic nature of neo-classicism with a new-found spiritual depth.  Ricky MartinThe musician Ricky Martin has sold over 70 million albums and has had 95 platinum records.  Mika (born Michael Holbrook Penniman, Jr.; 18 August 1983), stylised as MIKA, is a British singer and songwriter.The Lebanese-British singer-songwriter Mika has acknowledged his Catholic upbringing but has written about his conflicting relationship with the Catholic Church and its stance on homosexuality in his music. He still considers himself Roman Catholic, and has indicated that his song " The Origin of Love" is about religion. " It's about the Roman Catholic Church, which I love dearly – even though I’m not a bigot and I’m not in denial of the human condition. Yet, at the same time, it's a very strange thing, ’cause I’m very respectful of that world."  Steve GrandAmerican country music singer Steve Grand is openly gay and a practicing Catholic. Actors and directors Jean CocteauJean Cocteau was a celebrated French writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. After a long absence from the Church he returned to practicing his Catholic faith in his later years, and was known to be particularly very devout. He designed and painted murals for the Church of Notre Dame de France in London.  Pier Paolo PasoliniPier Paolo Pasolini (1922 – 1975) was an Italian film director, poet, writer and intellectual. He was openly gay. He described himself as a " Catholic Marxist"; although elsewhere insisted he was an atheist. His film The Gospel According to St. Matthew was a re-telling of the New Testament story, part-financed by the Catholic Church, and dedicated to " the dear, joyous, familiar memory of Pope John XXIII". The film won the Grand Prize at the International Catholic Film Office.  Lucio DallaLucio Dalla was a popular Italian singer-songwriter, musician and actor. He was outed as gay after his death (having had a long-term partner, Marco Alemanno) He was a practicing Roman Catholic, and was given a funeral mass in the cathedral at Bologna.  Franco ZeffirelliFranco Zeffirelli is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He remains a practicing Catholic and believes that " Catholicism is the only [religion] that comprehensively meets the needs of mankind." Furthermore, he has spoken about the making of the film Jesus of Nazareth as representing an important turning point - giving " the opportunity to draw closer to the mystery of Christ".  Pedro AlmodóvarPedro Almodóvar (b.1949) is a Spanish film director, screenwriter, producer and former actor. He is openly gay. Many of his films contain strong Catholic imagery. His film " Dark Habits" (1993) features a mother superior in a convent who is also a lesbian. The 2004 film " Bad Education" deals with the theme of the sexual abuse of children at the hands of Catholic priests. |
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Post by jeanne on Feb 6, 2017 1:50:43 GMT 1
Pieter,
All these people described here are part of the broad spectrum of humanity that is gathered under the mantle of the Catholic Church. They demonstrate the truth that life is a struggle for all of humankind; all humans have their "cross to carry" and that people with varying types of crosses often find consolation in Christ who knows himself what it is to carry a cross.
I find this article to be a wonderful testament to the indisputable irresistible attraction of God who bids all people to draw closer to him.
Jeanne
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 6, 2017 13:21:26 GMT 1
Dear Bonobo, I do believe you are a Polish version of me. You did and do the same in Poland. You also travel through the country and visit a lot of cities, towns, villages, urban agglomerations, hamlets, rural area's, wild life parks, periferies of cities, and have a particular interest in infrastructure, old and new buildings, Graffiti and murals, local people and etc. In your case you have your background as a dedicated father and familyman, teacher and student counsellor, and as a person with interest in the Polish society you live in and the culture, people, politics, psychology and sociology that go with that. I am a dualist in nature, and that dualism is radical. One side of me is impatient with the provincial Eastern city I live in (Arnhem) and loves cosmopolitan Metropoles (like Warsaw, Berlin, New York, Cape Town, London and Paris), or larger Dutch cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. (Like the Cracovian Bo who likes and admires Warsaw) The Cosmopolitian in me is an internationalist, progressive, radical liberal, multi-cultural, pluralistic and 'modern'. I live with this complex dualism, but can coop with it. I can't live without both the big city and the silence of the rural countryside, woods and the traditional side of the Netherlands of the villages, hamlets with a few old tiny farms and small towns. But if I was forced to choose I would only be able to live in a large city, because I don't have the small provincial town mentality. I am not a provincial chap (I have Rotterdam and Warsaw genes and dna ) Read more: polandsite.proboards.com/thread/4565/nin-hosts-narrow-gauge-railway?page=1#ixzz4XuIxNJWDIt is possible we are the same version. But recently we travel less because we spend holidays in the countryside where planting and gardening have become my new hobby and my family lend a hand. And it seems they took to this change, especially children, because during our earlier travels, I forced them to go with me to museums, galleries, cemeteries and other boring places of history or culture. I have a strong uniform background but I am also torn by various forces and attracted to totally different things. Although I love the countryside, I am still fascinated with Warsaw and other cities in Poland. I love to read and observe how they develop, change, move forward. But my farm has become more important now because I still need to invest some funds and time to complete its adaptation to comfortable stay. I also live and cope with this dualism, it certainly doesn`t cause any moral or mental discomfort to me. |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 6, 2017 13:47:34 GMT 1
That is the typical *unrest or quintessence of people of mixed heritage. (Dutch and Polish in my case and Danish-Frisian/German in Karl's case in the other Forum) The constant interaction between genes, families, nations, interests and sometimes conflicting interests. Certainly the case in the situation of the Netherlands and Poland, which have different positions and affiliations in Europe. In my view Poland is much more monolythic, more a one culture nation with one dominant religion and one dominant majority. The Netherlands is linguistically, social-cultural and geographically more divided. The Dominant Holland and Utrecht regions in the West and Center forming the Randstad are an identity inside the identity the Netherlands. The succesful Brabant cities in the South (Eindhoven, Den Bosch, Helmond, Tilburg and Breda) are another financial-economical, technological and cultural entity. The Northern provinces form some unity and my own Gelderland Province forms an Eurregion with Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia) in Germany. The Dutch language, infrastructure (Highways and railways), education and press and media keeps us a little bit together over here. But in general a Eastern Gelderland Saxon person has little in common with a Western Hollander. The Hollander is the dominant, direct, slightly arrogant, dynamic and typical Dutchman, foreigners see as the typical Dutchman. Jeanne met them and described these Dutchmen. I can deal with their intractability, insolence, lack of manners, impatience, direct -sometimes confrontational- sense of humor and the fact that they are very present wherever they are. Flemish Belgian people don't like that Hollander directness. The Western Holland (Northerners for the Flemish) people are the fast speakers, the assertive people, cunning, dominant and arrogant people. (The Flemish people do not distinghuish and therefor all the Dutch people get the same label as the Western Hollanders I described above here). Poland, much bigger than the Netherlands, is also divided into regions where people feel they are bound by strong regional identity and prefer to keep to each other and look suspiciously at other groups. Such strong groups are for example Silesians, Warsawians, Krakowians, Highlanders from Tatra Mountains, Greater Polanders from Poznań area, Kashubians from the North. They consider themselves different and even better than people from other regions. That`s normal in peace times, of course when the existence of the whole nation is in danger, they are able to unite, it is natural. |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 6, 2017 14:07:44 GMT 1
* Sometimes you wonder how would my life have been in Poland? Maybe it is a silly or useless question, but that question is there anyhow. Sometimes I wonder how my life would have been if my parents had stayed in the same town I was born in in a forest region in the East of the Netherlands ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeldoorn ). If we keep your birth in the forest but assume it had happened in Poland and then we further assume you had stayed there, I see only one possibility for you - you would certainly remain in the forest and worked with European bisons and other animals and generally take interest in wildlife. You could write articles about them and publish photos and books and make quite a good living from it. You could be another Adam Wajrak, wildlife journalist who works for liberal Gazet Wyborcza.   |
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Post by jeanne on Feb 6, 2017 16:31:38 GMT 1
* Sometimes you wonder how would my life have been in Poland? Maybe it is a silly or useless question, but that question is there anyhow. Sometimes I wonder how my life would have been if my parents had stayed in the same town I was born in in a forest region in the East of the Netherlands ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeldoorn ). If we keep your birth in the forest but assume it had happened in Poland and then we further assume you had stayed there, I see only one possibility for you - you would certainly remain in the forest and worked with European bisons and other animals and generally take interest in wildlife. You could write articles about them and publish photos and books and make quite a good living from it. You could be another Adam Wajrak, wildlife journalist who works for liberal Gazet Wyborcza. Oh, I don't know about that...I think Pieter probably would be doing the same work he is now...only he'd be out there covering all those PiS protests and demonstrations! (and Bonobo would be posting Pieter's work on his threads about Polish politics!) |
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Post by jeanne on Feb 6, 2017 16:47:16 GMT 1
The Dutch language, infrastructure (Highways and railways), education and press and media keeps us a little bit together over here. But in general a Eastern Gelderland Saxon person has little in common with a Western Hollander. The Hollander is the dominant, direct, slightly arrogant, dynamic and typical Dutchman, foreigners see as the typical Dutchman. Jeanne met them and described these Dutchmen. I can deal with their intractability, insolence, lack of manners, impatience, direct -sometimes confrontational- sense of humor and the fact that they are very present wherever they are. Flemish Belgian people don't like that Hollander directness. The Western Holland (Northerners for the Flemish) people are the fast speakers, the assertive people, cunning, dominant and arrogant people. (The Flemish people do not distinghuish and therefor all the Dutch people get the same label as the Western Hollanders I described above here). Hi Pieter, It's true that I did mention to you before that I had met some Hollanders whom you recognized as such from my description of them. However, please don't think I see them strictly as the typical Dutchman. I also met some very cultured, polite and personable Dutch...so I see the Dutch nationality as a mixture of all personality/character types, as people are everywhere in our world! Jeanne |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 6, 2017 17:24:23 GMT 1
I think Pieter probably would be doing the same work he is now...only he'd be out there covering all those PiS protests and demonstrations! (and Bonobo would be posting Pieter's work on his threads about Polish politics!) Covering on which side? |
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Post by jeanne on Feb 6, 2017 17:36:13 GMT 1
I think Pieter probably would be doing the same work he is now...only he'd be out there covering all those PiS protests and demonstrations! (and Bonobo would be posting Pieter's work on his threads about Polish politics!) Covering on which side? As part of the media, he would, I'm sure, be totally neutral and just report the facts!! Right Pieter?? |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 6, 2017 17:43:23 GMT 1
Covering on which side? As part of the media, he would, I'm sure, be totally neutral and just report the facts!! Right Pieter?? It is rare, usually journalists take sides, but not impossible. |
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Post by jeanne on Feb 6, 2017 19:26:49 GMT 1
As part of the media, he would, I'm sure, be totally neutral and just report the facts!! Right Pieter?? It is rare, usually journalists take sides, but not impossible. Yes, I guess I should have mentioned that I was speaking ironically...but I also wanted to support Pieter by saying that HE would of course be neutral and not like all the other slanted-view reporters! |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 6, 2017 21:26:00 GMT 1
Dear Jeanne and Bonono, Jeanne is correct that in my work as a local (humble) tv journalist (cameraman, editor and camjo = camera journalist- by the way I am typing this right now in the RTV-Arnhem tv edit room) I am quite neutral, objective and try to be fair and frank. I treat all political parties equal over here, the national and the local ones, the left, right and centrist ones. If you count culture, fine art, art photography, painting/drawing, an ecclectic taste in music, general history and art history, art academy fine art education, philosophy, an interest in architecture and city life, an investigative mind (my job is to interview and film people and sometimes to do a lot of work to convince people to allow me to interview them and research them and ask critical questions they don't always want to answer), love for forests, other countries and cultures (and thus travelling), an interest in most slavic cultures (the other slavic cultures next to Poland), a main interest in Poland (that's why I am here), Polish culture and Polish people, and next to that a fondness of Enlgish language and German press and media (because they have more info about Poland than the Dutch ones) and a great cinematographic enthousiast and a person who like the international climate of places where people with a lot of different nationalities meet (that's why I love Amsterdam, Warsaw, Berlin and Krakow) then you have me or know me. I moved away from art and culture the past decade, but this weekend the world of art and culture came back to me when I filmed an art exhibition. I can move away from drawing, painting, thinking about art and writing about art, by working as a journalist with regional economical and financial subjects, politics, society, education and health care news issues, but art and culture will catch up with me. My background and old connections are still these arty (artistic) people from Amsterdam, The Hague and Arnhem. All these friends with their variety of jobs, photographers, painters, ICT specialists, graphic designers, architects, health care people. All these people in my personal circle of friends have what you would call in Poland a cultural intelligentsia background. Literature, poetry, quality music, fine art (contemporary art), politics, pyschology/sociology, the civil society, subjects like ethics, philosophy, wildlife, ecological food (fair and environmentaly safe produced food), yoga, meditation, mindfullness, (Zen) Buddhism, spirituality, quality press (good news; good articles, good essays, good columns, good letters), art house cinema, alternative pop music (what they call Indie music in the USA), traveling to non-touristic destinations, wildlife and sport (healty living) and dancing, good pubs and restaurants are important to these people. There are also musicians, dancers, fashion designers, theatrical playwrights and actors/actressesd and teachers/couches amongst them. How would you describe them in Polish and American terms Bo and Jeanne? Liberals, progressives, libertarians, free thinkers, intelligentsia (because most of them have a vocational university or university academic background), adventurers, creative professionals. My world consist mainly of people with creative cultural professions, health care jobs, idealists, dreamers, people with probably more leftwing leaning ideas. Sometimes it feels like I am traditional, conservative or even rightwing if I am with them, because I like some old fashionate things and like to conserve them while they don't care and are more attached to progressive change. Everything changes and you can't stop it they say to me. I am fond of them, I love them, they are my best critics, my comedians, my loved ones, my comrades, sometimes tiresome, sometimes annoying (in their difficult, complicated arguments, disagreements and thus discussions - I admid that I sometimes or often don't have an appatite for these discussions and than they call me a stubborn, grumpy, introvert, cheerless, irritated chap - If my mood is good I will jump into one of these deep discussions and drown in it or fight until the end for my thesis, opinion or personal ideology, philosophy or statements). I love woodwork (cutting trees), making fires (amongst friends, a Holistic group I attend regularly and family I am the fire maker), walking for hours in the mountains or woods (love climbing), gardening (if I would have a garden, and therefor in my parents garden in Zeeland), cycling fast though Dutch towns and cities, but also the country (I cycle every day to my job and don't have a car), and love to swim, row and surf. I love the Veluwe forest region around Arnhem. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeluweWhel Jeanne and Bonobo, I have tried to be honest, this is what I can tell you about myself and my private life. I should probably draw, paint, walk and cycle more, but filming (TV camera), editing (Adobe Premiere Pro) and Television interviews (and being part of the Muncipality and region press of RTV-Arnhem, de Gelderlander Newspaper -colleages of the written press-, the local news blogs Arnhem Direct and Ik hou van Arnhem and the larger competitor Omroep Gelderland -Gelderland Broacast corpoartion- keeps me out of the woods and holds me back from drawing and painting). I hope that I will find time again for painting, drawing and cycling and walking more (in the sense of sport). Cheers, Pieter |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 6, 2017 22:04:41 GMT 1
Sometimes some aspects of my old circle of artist/culture friends reminded me of a seventies Woody Allen movie, Italian movies of Fellini or Pasolini (the art and culture world has a great variety of people, characters and personalities with all kind of ethnic, cultural and sexual backgrounds; straight hetrosexuals, homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals and people who are something inbetween. People with Dutch, German or Felmish heritage, and people with Austrian, Swiss, Polish, Hungarian, Turkish, Kurd, Moroccan, Surinamese or Dutch Antillian Black, full blood Indonesian, Indo-European or Moluccan [Amobonese] background, Persians, Bosnians, Romanians and even Russians and Ukrainians. But most of them are Dutch with a rich variety of regional backgrounds -Frisians, Brabant and Limburg people with their Southern charming soft G language -I am a standard Dutch tough G -Holland region/Western - Dutch speaker, Eastern Saxon people from Gelderland, OverIjssel, Drenthe or Groningen with their nasal -tough N sound- dialects or accent. And I can get along with all these kinds of Dutch people, but here in the Saxon Gelderland East I prefer the Western Dutch Holland import people from Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht. Most of my friends are import [Holland] people, with some Southern Brabanders and Limburgers amongst them. I have a few Saxon friends of the Eastern-Gelderland Achterhoek border region. I like their farmer, hard working and direct mentality, which is in contrast with the more introvert local Arnhem town or city people, who are more rigid, reserved and distrusting. But like Jeanne said, I can talk in stereotypes, but in the same time you can find people of all these sorts I described over here who don't fit in the regional description I gave here. I talk about loners, characters and personalities of individuals who can be different from the dominant group they belong to. But fact stays that almost 100% of my social circle in Arnhem is made of people who weren't born and raised in Arnhem. Real Arnhem people (echte Arnhemmers) like Arnhem people would say it. That expression always irritated me. ' Real Arnhem girl', ' Real Arnhem guy', ' the real Arnhemmer' are people who speak in the heavy Arnhem dialect/accent, and have the Arnhem mentality of ' I really belong here, because I was born and raised here, and I don't come from Amsterdam -like Pieter-, or Nijmegen.' Nijmegen-the arch enemy neighbour city, a soccer match between the Arnhem and Nijmegen soccer teams is like the derby Wisła Kraków- KS Cracovia, a civil war or Holy war ( Derby Krakowa w piłce nożnej). Walking in a Vitesse (Arnhem soccer club) jellow black training jacket or t-shirt could cause you your sudden death in Nijmegen. The same would be the case if you walked in a Arnhem workers hood with the Nijmegen NEC Red/Green/Black colors in Arnhem. Rotterdam and Amsterdam people have a traditional dislike or hatred for eachother. A real Rotterdammmer don't likes to visit Amsterdam. He is proud of his harbour city. THe Hague people are mocked by both Amsterdam and Rotterdam people because The Hague is a village without city rights (Town privileges or borough rights). And etc. etc. The pillarisation created some divide between the Roman-Catholic (Limburg-Brabant) South and the Protestant West and North. Class differences and class struggle played some role in the Netherlands in the 19th and 20th century. Under the Dutch monarchy lay old Republican layers. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_States_Partyen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriottentijden.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Republic ( pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republika_Zjednoczonych_Prowincji ) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtholder ( pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadhouder ) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_and_Cod_warsen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War ( pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojna_osiemdziesi%C4%99cioletnia ) Cheers, Pieter |
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