Stream of Passion

Yesterdaynight was a good night. Last week I stumbled upon a "new" (at least for me) band called Stream of Passion. A project of Arjen Lucassen who is the mastermind behind Aeryon; an experimental metal project in which he collaborates with people like Bruce Dickinson, James Labrie to name but a few. Stream of Passion is more gothic than Aeryon and sounds like a less commercial version of Within Temptation.

So last night I went with Mark to 'Het Paard' in The Hague to check them out. These people seriously rock and I was much impressed. They played wellknown Aeryon stuff and lots of the Stream of Passion album 'Embrace the Storm'. I was amazed by Marcela Bovio who can produce an astonishing volume and range for such small woman. Oh and did I mention that she is a very beautiful Mexican? ;) Anyways, together with her sister Diana (background vocals) they provide a haunting experience featuring live on-stage violin solos combined with heavy guitar riffs. Arjen Lucassen is of course briliant on guitar but I was also very much impressed by the swedish Lori Linstruth. Having Arjen around is great for any band but Linstruth is very capable of doing lead guitars herself, no problems there. So with a setup of two girls on vocals, two lead guitars, a base guitar, piano and drums everything is set to rock. Which they did and the crowd with them. Biggest plus with small bands is the fact that I stood only two meters from stage since there were only a hundred or so people :) A place the average Robbie Williams (who played the same night but the choice really was't that hard) fan would have killed for. My sister in-law would call it 'getting within Robbie's spitting distance'... I prefered Stream of Passion, with no spitting and lots of headbanging.

So, if they play anywhere near you simply go and have a look. If you like Within Temptation, The Gathering or Nightwish you won't be disappointed. For Aeryon fans it is mandatory since he doesn't do many life performances ;)

About a cock and chicks

Yesterday my family was torn by debate. We got stuck in an endless string of confusion after my brother stated: "I get tired of those crowing chickens at my appartment...". On which my mum replied "Chickens don't crow, cocks crow". I immediately stepped in to support my brother stating: "cocks are chickens".

Of course nobody believed me... nobody believes me *ever* ;) So today at the office during a moment of workpeace I fired from nowhere the question: "Is a cock a chicken?" Now lo and behold, the same raging discussion started all over. I personally believe that the question is therefor cursed. It is even worse than the question "What came first, the chicken or the egg?". Eventually we called in a specialist. The girlfriend of a colleague teaches courses in 'animal care' at a college for agriculture. She patiently explained that: a cock is a chicken like a tomcat is a cat, a boar is a pig and a bull is a cow. Funnily a cow is also a cow. To make matters worse the dutch male pig (and I am not talking about the average soccer fan here) is "beer" meaning "bear", so following this logic a pig can be a 'beer' but of course a 'bear' is not a pig. My brother and I did drink a certain amount of beer before we cocked up this discussion - pun intended.

Along the line of thought that: "if it's on the internet it must be true" I googled the question "Is a cock a chicken?" in dutch. The first hit was my reliable friend wikipedia, which got - for just this memorable occasion - transformed to "the must trustworthy source of information on the planet". The dutch article explained: A cock is a male chicken; the female chicken is a hen. The behaviour and appearance of a cock differs greatly from the hen.

As such I think I won... *dances* ;)

More grades

Oookay, stuff is getting seriously scary now. I just received a call from my professor Medieval History. He told me that my paper about the Christian conversion of Scandinavia was one of the best he had read in *years*. He had some minor comments on stuff he would have done differently - these ppl remain teachers ;) - but eventually he rated it at 90 out of 100 :) combined with my input during his lectures (85) and my presentation (85) I scored 88 points for his class.

... and he still asked me if I could live with that ;)

Grades

Quick update before going to bed. I received the results of my exam on Christian Medieval Thought... I scored a whooping 90 out of 100! I had already written a paper on St. Bernard of Clairvaux for the same course which resulted in 80 out of 100. So all in all I think I will declare this as a yay-moment :)

*yay*

k enough yays, off to bed now.

6-6-6

Funny how much today's date still scares people. Even the NOS has put up this article (in dutch). I have been studying Medieval Christianity through the entire pentacost weekend and am truly amazed how 'medieval' we actually still are. A colleague told me that a suicide warning has been issued by the health service. His dad-in-law works as principal at a High School. My mum told me the same thing, she works at the emergency services callcenter.

Of course goths are singled out in the warning.

*sigh*

Stupid stereotyping.

As some kind of holy countermeasure over 2000 Christians are currently doing a pray-a-thon to keep the Devil from doing his dirty work. They form part of a worldwide prayer chain in order to provide God with a different sound other than continuous satanic 'Death Metal' you hear on the radio. Now I am a big metal fan mind you, and the last time I heard some metal on the radio was really quite a while ago actually. Metal, especially Death Metal, doesn't seem to improve the number of listeners. Which is eventually all that matters to commercial radio. Oh, not counting Metallica's 'Nothing Else Matters' of course. It seems that Satan's work for the 21st century is thwarted by our commercial drive and the urge to make more money... which I feel is somewhere a bit ironic.

As a Christian (although I do very much *not* believe in the Devil!) and wannabe historian of religious human behaviour this entire thing obviously intrigues me. Yesterday on Belgian television I saw a documentary about a Pere Samuel who was kicked out of the Roman Catholic church, bought his own church and founded something the Belgian parliament identifies as a sect. Funnily, he copies the exact behaviour as the wanderpreachers in the late fourteenth century. He preaches without approval and holds people under a spell of faith in order to save their soul. In the mean time (also very fourteenth-century-like) he tends to make a bit of money from them. A pity for him that culture and mentality have changed a bit over the past 600 years and people on the average tend to be a tiny bit more educated and informed. His flock is dwindling to the gullible who don't make much of an impression when you are confronted with journalists. Neither does telling people exactly what they need to say in front of the camera while you think the mike is off. Nor does answering annoying questions with: "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost..." or "If people spoke ill of Christ they will also speak ill of me...". All in all he is very much a fossil of a bygone age and thus very interesting to observe.

Well... need to get back to work. I promise that if all hell breaks lose I'll let you know.

...

But I wouldn't count on it.