‘‘Today, you can expect it to be windy throughout the day, a few showers between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. After that, it’s expected to be mostly cloudy. It’ll get a little warmer in the afternoon, around 10 degrees Celsius. The overall chance of rain is 45 percent. Tomorrow, showers in the morning and high temperatures around the 9 in the south up to 12 degrees in the north-east. The rest of….’
My radio alarm fell on the ground and stopped talking too me. The batteries fell out too.
Yawn.
Thank you Radio-West,
Thank you weather man.
Rain. I have to get out anyway. Today would be a good day for giving love, earning money and afterwards doing grocery shopping.
During the vacation you can find a lot of lost Italian and French tourist couples around the city, following their tourist brochure; a cheap restaurant with a English menu card, beautiful postcards of windmills turning in the wind, old houses from long time ago and a canal boat with pancakes on board.
Searching for real romance in a city like this is hard.
Earning money too.
Opened my curtains. Weatherman was right:
I grabbed some clean panties and ran to the shower. The alarm of my roommate was on. Like normal. She has a radio alarm like me but tuned on a different channel, a different way of waking up.
I think this is her tactic.
Step one: buy a radio alarm
Step two: take a night to search for the most horrible 90’s 80’s radio channel and select it as your alarm clock
Step three: put your alarm 3 hours before the time that you actually should wake up
Step four: let the music play for a few hours, try to interfere the music with your dream
Her room is next to the shower, so I can enjoy my shower with some classical pop hits.
I should print out some lyrics, laminating and take them with me while washing my hair.
But I can also be wrong.
Maybe it isn’t her way of waking up.
Maybe she doesn’t want to hear me take a shower.
Maybe she has two alarms. One to wake up and one during the time that I am under the shower.
I don’t know.
I like the sound of water coming out of a shower, it reminds me of a vacation to the Philippines when I was a teenager. Three huge relaxing waterfalls where I tried to take arty pictures of.
Although I can imagine that for others the sound can trigger the bladder.
And if you have to go to the toilet it is really annoying at such moment if the bathroom is occupied by your showering roommate.
I Whispered along with some songs. Dried myself. Combed my hair. Toothpaste. Pants. Socks.
It was an idea of mine a few years ago. I saw it hanging and bought it. Pure intuition you could say.
I was attracted, hypnotized, magnetized without a reason.
A knitted sweater, on top light yellow and at the bottom black.
So I bought it.
It hung in my closet for a while until I needed money.
Simple idea.
Find a problem and solve it.
Problem: no money
Solution: Earning money
On a free day like this, I put on my sunset sweater, take the tram to one of the parks in the city to search for couples sitting on a bench.
While standing in front of them I unzip my raincoat and show them the sunset.
Of course it’s nice to work on a sunny day, but a day like this is perfect.
Heavy clouds, wet ground.
Grumpy shopkeepers, crowded restaurants.
Disappointed lovers with hats, hand gloves and raincoats.
At the end of the day, after the shops, the museum and the canal boat a lot of couples go to the park just like the tourist brochure advises. While entering the park the woman most of the time want to sit. Tired of their day and maybe slightly disappointed staring ahead.
It is nice, that I can provide them some romance. The bright colors in contrast with surrounding make it seem like a view trough to a different landscape. A warm sunset.
I stand a few meters in front of the couple, the knitted pixels make it seem to move from a distance, very slow going under. I hold jacket open for a few minutes en close my eyes. Give them some privacy.
I think that at such moment with the perfect timing, when out of now where a girl opens her jacket and shows the sunset, something changes. They will realize it’s the end of a day. That the sun goes under, and tomorrow will come up (though there is a big chance here that the clouds will hide him).
After I hear the sound of a kiss from the direction of the bench I open my eyes and close the jacket.
Most of the time the couple thank me.
‘Grazie mille’
‘Merci beaucoup’
‘Danke Schön’
‘Thank you’
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Carlijn:
I have a few questions:
Could you tell me something about this sweater?
Is it from a picture you took?
A memory?
What is the story?
Corné:
There is not that much to say about the sweater, except that its digitally knitted. Every pixel is a stich, the machine can work with maximum four colors so not every picture is possible. For this sweater I used an already excisting photo and edited it.
Furthermore, no special reasons of content and story.
Carlijn:
I imagine someone wearing it in a landscape that is completely different, on a cold rainy day.
Imagine the wearer could earn money by showing the sweater to romantic couples in the city centre.
Corné:
I really like your story and thoughts about this sweater.
I hope you are informed sufficiantly, I am curious about the end result.
