Dear friends and fans, Its the end of June 2023
This is the first and also the last mailchimp newsletter shortly after my 80th birthday celebration on Sunday, June 18. By "last" I mean that I am going to use this as the last chapter to complete my WALL TALK trilogy. I am therefore keeping this newsletter a little shorter than usual.
Now my three books really need to be printed as soon as possible, so that I can hand them out to at least 80 friends from Holland before the end of this year 2023, because that was one of the reasons I gave a big so-called crowd funding party. And indeed it was a real festivity where 80 people showed up. Meanwhile, also present was the very nice film crew , who are working with Barbara Makkinga to finish a documentary about my life.
I myself interviewed half a dozen of my oldest and best friends, who were present and asked them what role I had played in their life, so they in turn had their say about their own life story. These friends included a particularly dear friend of Philip and me: AZMEH DAWOOD and her 20-year-old son, Souffian, who assisted us in the kitchen. She is one of our most colorful friends from Pakistan, married to English Johnny. Despite her many years of MS, she still manages to move around quite smoothly, either in her canta, on the tandem, seated behind the back of her husband or with a tripod, because now they live practically around the corner from me. Shortly after they returned home, news broke that her own brother, the super wealthy Pakistani businessman DAWOOD and his son had disappeared in a submarine called Titan to look up the Titanic shipwreck, along with 3 other millionaires. Azmeh did know that her favorite nephew had been offered this special trip for his 18th birthday by his father, who had just paid the sum of $440,000 for the two of them, though the nephew was not really interested at first, but in the end agreed to join his father. The next few days were purely hellish for Azmeh and her family, once they found out that NOBODY had survived the horrible underwater accident.
I had specially engaged the new talented EECO RIJNEN to come and play on our recently specially tuned piano some haunting boogy woogy songs accompanied by his velvety voice. So did FRANK AFFOLTER play some ragtime tunes: he had just flown in from Japan, where he had visited his son. DAVID KOPSKY with his saxophone (and his charming wife and their cute little son) accompanied. FRANK DE KLEER on guitar in our garden in between the many interviews that were being filmed for the documentary about my life.
Also there was a still very attractive Finnish lesbian photographer/writer LIISA SIMOLA, who I hadn't seen for ages and she stayed with us in the BB for 3 nights. She took half a century ago the most beautiful slender nude photos of me when we both lived in Toronto and of course had ended in bed together.
PETER VAN ZONNEVELD and his girlfriend MARIANNE TERMORSHUIZEN gave an excellent speech about my Indonesian roots and my stay as a toddler in the Japanese concentration camps on Java; MARIAN VERBRAAK told us about her complicated heart transplant, which was followed a few years later by a kidney transplant.
The sweet story teller KEES VAN WANROOIJ along with our housemate PATRIK took care of the collecting of financial contributions for my book crowdfunding party and later on that afternoon Kees handed me a nice big round cake with a charming portrait of myself on top.
Our American crooner SHAI SHAHAR gave an interesting solo musical speech about what in short would be the content of my 3 Wall Talk books, when they would come out by the end of this year.
HENK VISSER, who took most of the photos that joyous afternoon (by the way Henk and I know each other from our Toronto years) had also moved in to our Happy House for a few days together with Danish tall blonde SUZANNE KRAGE .
Our thanks also go out to IRMA, SHARENE and HARRISON, who had assisted preparing some great so called finger-food either at home or in our kitchen. Then there was our best friend HERMAN of course, who installed the sound system.
And of course, not to forget there were dozens of deliciously SPICED MEATBALLS prepared by my husband Philip!
As mentioned above I will keep it short this time and also pass on the three titles of my WALL TALK TRILOGY... in case you hear or read something about it in the newspapers by the end of this year:
- THE PRUDENT BIRD OF PARADISE
- IF THE WALLS COULD TALK
- GROWING OLD IS NOT FOR SISSIES
P.S.: Herewith a picture of our new little housemate... LUNA a feisty black and white little poodle girl. Especially Philip takes very good care of her and they go weekly to puppy training sessions!!!
So... this is the latest news. Stay happy and healthy, while you are still in great shape and if one of us starts showing signs of decay be nice to each other and assist those friends who could use some extra help.
LOVE, XAVIERA HOLLANDER AND PHILIP
