Dear Justin, movies and more movies

No. 4 | an update from Amsterdam

Dec 10, 2023

channeling Emily in Paris to keep friends and family updated on life as an American in Amsterdam

silly syd was out to play this week. gonna keep her around, me thinks.

Dear Justin,

How are you!? I miss you and am very excited to see you in just a few weeks! I’m dreaming of lots of snow, chocolate bark, and movies by the fire.

On the topic of movies, I have 10 (tien in Dutch!) updates for you from a movie-filled week:

We saw The Boy and the Heron, Studio Ghibli’s final movie, at Amsterdam’s IMAX theater! Both the theater and the movie were fantastic. I was losing my mind over the concession setup! They had a self-serve Starbucks, tons of candy reminiscent of Dylan’s Candy Bar, numerous types of popcorn, ice cream, and more. My head was spinning. This wasn’t my favorite of the Studio Ghibli movies (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Ponyo hold special places in my heart), but it was still wonderful, in no small part thanks to the stunning colors and landscapes.
phenomenal concessions situation
Continuing with movies, we also saw the new Willy Wonka! Timothée Chalamet was made to be a young Willy. He was fabulous, as were the rest of the characters. The whole movie was one giant smile. I got a hot cocoa immediately after, and suspect I’ll be on a hot cocoa kick for the next few weeks.
We went to a Nan Goldin exhibit at the Stedelijk, an Amsterdam museum, full of several slideshows of thousands of her photos. They were stark, honest demonstrations of the joys of life and the sorrows of loss, from documenting the highs of discovering gender fluid communities and the genius of children, to the lows of living through the AIDS crisis and drug addiction. I was struck by how much meaning some of the most seemingly mundane photos held, like an empty motel room with ruffled bed sheets.
the description from one of the slideshows. i love the quote in the last sentence.
We went to the Eye, Amsterdam’s film museum. The temporary exhibition (by Janis Rafa) was not my favorite, but definitely provoked thoughts about how we humans dominate so many species of animals. The permanent exhibition that showcased the timeline of filmmaking was cool! I got to interact with some of the old film-based projectors and then got silly with the green screen:
Christmas spirit!! I watched Elf and Love Actually. Every single person in the world should watch the opening scene of Love Actually. I think we have a tendency, when hard things are happening, to think the world is getting worse and worse, but this scene made me think maybe things aren’t getting worse. We’re just dealing with a lot of the same problems still, most of which are rooted in hate. Perhaps, as the scene suggests, we can turn things around by focusing more on love. Energy flows where attention goes.
We watched Showing Up, a solid movie about the life of an artist. At this point in writing, I’m quite stunned by how many movies I watched this week. I’ve just been feeling it!
We explored a new neighborhood, Noord. Though on paper the day had a lot of hiccups (e.g. we got on the wrong ferry to get there and it rained on us a bunch), it ended up being a day I’ll remember fondly for a long, long time. We made the best of it, laughing through the rain, and had tacos for the first time since arriving in Amsterdam from a place called Coba. They were fabulous. Gosh, I missed Mexican food.
breakfast (at Public Space) through dinner (at Coba) in Noord!
We saw a concert by an artist named Sampha. As is typical when I tag along with A to concerts, I didn’t know his music before, but I loved him! His Tiny Desk concert is beautiful.
I had a lot of good breakthroughs with my business coach this week about branding, my readiness to take beta clients for a new coaching program, and my bio for my site. Writing a personal bio is surprisingly difficult!
And, finally, for the most fulfilling highlight, I published a new piece about how unsubscribing from mailing lists is a vote of confidence for my dreams.
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