versteek

This morning Geert had me input part of an eighteenth-century melody written by Johannes DeGruytters (1709-1772), his ancient predecessor as city carillonneur of Antwerpen, onto the automatic drum of that same carillon with the same pins DeGruytters used two centuries past. It was surprisingly fun, especially when the cheerful torenwachter would turn inside the drum as we rotated it to the next row.

That melody will resound over the city at every half-hour for the year, and if anyone misses me when I'm back in the US, you may always hear me there. :) Creating this little legacy was a good way to console myself as I struggled to convince the Antwerpen post office to let me spend 30 € on international express mail so my acceptance letter for Eastman would reach the office on time.
Even the Antwerpen post office headquarters personnel seem to think I look too poor or too unimportant to afford, let alone need, international express mail. Same story with every business in this country besides the American-owned FedEx, it seems. But I finally received the Fulbright's decision on Tuesday, and the decision was no, which means Eastman even if I eventually win the Flemish Community fellowship this summer. My second time making the Fulbright short list and not making it--but the third time will be the charm. I'll be back. It just sucks to have to move across the pond multiple times and to break my progress at the carillon when I'm advancing so quickly. What will become of me without my great teacher? I'll still advance, but inefficiently. It will feel like lost time.

In the meantime, however, I'll have my very own carillon to play--a dream come true. Not to mention the coolest organ program on the planet.

Afterwards Geert and I gave ourselves a little tour of the new Law Courts complex by architect Richard Rogers (who also brought us the Centre Pompidou), which stands just down the street from his house. Difficult to imagine that a building with its courts inside soaring metallic sail forms is a solemn hall of justice, but Antwerpen has pulled it off. Apparently the sails, assembled in a shipyard, came by barge over the Schelde--imagine that! Remarkably, the tram lines to that spot were laid in the early twentieth century, and it will take less than a meter of rails to connect them to the currently running Lijn 8. 't Stad finds an impressive number of ways to be cool.