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<\/a><\/p>\nThere was this meatball place near Fritland.\u00a0 Closed on October 1st<\/sup> and 2nd<\/sup>.<\/p>\n I stumbled upon what might have been my photo mecca \u2013 \u201cMoof\u201d or the Museum of Original Figurines that apparently features giant sculptures of various cartoon and comic characters.\u00a0 Closed on Mondays.<\/p>\n I found this all out not through pre-trip research, mais no<\/em>.\u00a0 I found this out through the tried and true method of shoe leather.\u00a0 I walked to each place only to discover my folly in person.<\/p>\n So I thought I\u2019d take this day to sort through a laundry list of things I MEANT to include in a few posts but failed to do so.\u00a0 And I thought I\u2019d also take the day to do my actual laundry.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a laundromat right next to my hotel but I thought their prices a bit steep.\u00a0 I had spotted another one not too far up the road and went to check out its tariffs.\u00a0 Turns out they were even more expensive.\u00a0 But they did have the better name.\u00a0 The first rule of wash club?\u00a0 Overcharge.<\/p>\n Instead, I wound up at Magic Wash this morning.\u00a0 Cheaper, closer, but still pricey.\u00a0 I\u2019m also pretty sure I shrunk a couple of my shirts. But the weird, surreal moment for me came when I used their washer and realized it was the same make and model (albeit modified to run off of tokens) as we had at Oak View back in the day.\u00a0 Nothing like bringing back old memories as things spin round and round.<\/p>\n I know, I know.\u00a0 Super boring so far.\u00a0 Hang in there, dear reader (singular\u2026 as I\u2019m pretty sure there\u2019s at most one person reading this\u2026).\u00a0 There\u2019s a fun photo coming up.\u00a0 Promise.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Anyway, here are two details I meant to include in the Magritte Museum post.<\/p>\n Magritte would often hold naming parties on Sundays for his works.\u00a0 He\u2019d have his friends over, present the works, and they\u2019d name the pieces.\u00a0 Usually the names were non sequitors.\u00a0 And sometime different pieces would have the same name, or the same piece would have multiple names.\u00a0 There\u2019s a surreal aspect to that too.\u00a0 There was a commentator late in the audioguide that psychoanalyzed this, despite Magritte hating such approaches to his work.\u00a0 He had been quoted (and this is a bastardization so not an actual quote\u2026 a quote tribute if you will) as saying that he saw something in his head, he painted it, and that was the painting.\u00a0 There was no meaning or analysis \u2013 it was what it was.\u00a0 But this commentator said that was part and parcel of his not-naming his own pieces, that he left the inner meaning and work to others, that he was not looking to self-analyze.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure I\u2019m butchering the meaning and intent not only of the commentator but Magritte as well but it was something I found interesting.<\/p>\n The other story revolved around Magritte\u2019s constantly being asked about his Treachery of Imagery pipe piece.\u00a0 At one point the audioguide had a clip of Magritte explaining why he didn\u2019t understand the outrage or confusion from people.\u00a0 Again, bastardization of the quote, but he said something to the effect of, \u201cIt\u2019s not a pipe.\u00a0 It\u2019s an IMAGE of a pipe.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not a pipe.\u00a0 If I told you to fill my pipe, you couldn\u2019t stuff tobacco into it because it\u2019s an image.\u00a0 Had I said \u2018This is a pipe\u2019 I\u2019d have been lying.\u201d<\/p>\n In some weird way it triggered a memory of my youth.\u00a0 On a much smaller scale, I had my own surreal art moment.\u00a0 In middle school we had an art class and the first assignment was to decorate our \u201cportfolio\u201d folders with an abstract rendering of our name.\u00a0 Kids were drawing letters melting a la Dali or in a 60s kaleidoscopic haze.\u00a0 Lots of talented folks in there, doing some amazing work to be sure.\u00a0 Me?\u00a0 I took a black magic marker and just wrote in block letters \u201cKEVIN.\u201d\u00a0 It was the most vanilla font imaginable, a Helvetica-ian nothing, very similar to the word printed on my running shirt from this race.\u00a0 The teacher, a good guy whose name has vanished into the haze of memory, called me over and asked me what I was doing.\u00a0 I told him that if everybody was doing these crazy abstract things with their names, the melting letters and the kaleidoscope, THAT became the new normal.\u00a0 Therefore the only way to be abstract was to be normal.<\/p>\n He gave me an \u201cA\u201d for logic; I can\u2019t recall what he gave the art.\u00a0 It WAS well printed.<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s Note: To be clear, I suck as an artist and am not making ANY comparison between my \u201cart\u201d and Magritte\u2019s.\u00a0 I just liked his logical argument against people\u2019s reactions to his work.<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The marathon announcer said there were 1000 people running the 42km course and close to 8000 doing the half.\u00a0 There were over 65 countries represented.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know the final tallies and figures as I can\u2019t find the official results, at least not in English.\u00a0 But the Brussels Marathon app did offer running tracking and I was able to screengrab my details:<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Last night I stumbled upon a waffle place (Waffles and Churros) that was running a special promotion (which might be their ALWAYS promotion but no matter).\u00a0 A waffle and ice cream for 2 euros.\u00a0 It was\u2026 money well spent.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n After failing at the aforementioned museums, I thought I\u2019d try for one last green screen selfie at the Parliamentarium as I knew it was open 7 days a week.\u00a0 But of course on Mondays it doesn\u2019t open until 1 PM.\u00a0 So \u2026 I had some time to kill\u2026<\/p>\n Remember the peeing dog statue?\u00a0 And the animal band statue?\u00a0 Those were the works of Belgian artist Tom Frantzen.\u00a0 He also did a statue honoring \u201cAgent 15.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s a bumbling police officer and the sculpture is apparently a scene straight out of the adventures of Herge\u2019s Quick and Flupke<\/em> series (yeah, yeah\u2026 I should\u2019ve gone to the Comic Strip Museum, I know\u2026 I\u2019m a Philistine.\u00a0 Worse I\u2019m a LAZY Philistine who didn\u2019t want to read).\u00a0 Agent 15\u2019s foot is grabbed by a sewer dwelling ne\u2019er do well (or maybe he\u2019s a do-well\u2026 I\u2019m not sure who we\u2019re supposed to be rooting for in the series) and Agent 15 is forever captured in mid-fall.<\/p>\n I joined him.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Oh, outside of the Moof building was this photo opp I think we all can agree is kinda rare.<\/p>\n A Smurf Statue.\u00a0 But not just any Smurf statue.\u00a0 I\u2019d gone nose to nose with a Smurf just yesterday.\u00a0 No, this was an ALBINO Smurf statue!\u00a0 Or maybe it\u2019s just a white stone statue.\u00a0 No, no.\u00a0 I\u2019m going with it as something as rare as a white tiger \u2013 the Albino Smurf of legend.<\/p>\n And as long as we\u2019re smurfing, here are what I think might be the most disturbing Smurf figures of all time.\u00a0 And that\u2019s saying something.\u00a0 One has to assume Peyo and his team enjoyed more than a few mushrooms themselves in inventing their land of little blue creatures.\u00a0 But one you start giving them lobster claws and such, well, it\u2019s a whole ‘nother\u00a0level.<\/p>\n I know they\u2019re supposed to be the signs of the Zodiac but seriously \u2013 this is the stuff of nightmares.<\/p>\n Which is the most disturbing?\u00a0 I honestly can\u2019t say.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Last little bit here \u2013 my second\u00a0attempt (and third and fourth) at Parliamentarium selfies.\u00a0 One is a redux of the assembly pic.\u00a0 I thought a Rogue One shirt befitting an organization built on\u2026 hope?<\/p>\n There were a number of background options, including a press corps one.\u00a0 I found this odd as to me there were only two ways to pose with this one \u2013 you\u2019re either a shooter or a shot, right?\u00a0 If you\u2019re a shooter, you need to be holding your camera and snapping the pic.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re being shot, well, you\u2019d have to pose like this, right?<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n