Dirk van Weelden

Dirk and Constant

In 1974, while rummaging through some crates in a second hand bookstore in Alkmaar, I came across an issue of the magazine Randstad, published by De Bezige Bij in 1961. It contained an essay by Constant and pictures of New Babylon from the exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum. From that moment on New Babylon was a prominent contemporary myth in my imagination. It formed the link between my boy’s world of space travel, robots and computers, the techno optimism of the Thunderbirds, and the world of modern art, counterculture, history and political theory that I explored. 

In 2006 I published the novel Het Middel, in which I investigated the notion of utopia. My protagonist (a bicultural wandering soul) discovers  a nomadic community, living on the ruins of an utopian community, that could be a version of New Babylon gone gruesomely wrong.They move between multiple worlds and invent their own history and culture. He joins them and even finds a new love. There is a tiny dog that is wandering through the book, called Constant.

A Typewriter Named Erika

When Dirk received the invitation for the flea market, For the Love of Things Previously Loved, he immediately spotted Constant’s Erika typewriter from 1978. Dirk owns a collection of typewriters and still writes his first drafts on them. He claims using a typewriter results in a first draft with notably less errors than using a computer.
All though Dirk has a impressive collection of typwriters, the Erika typewriter from 1978 was missing.
His good friend and colleague, Martin Bril, once promised to give him his Erika from 1978. But in a fit of writer’s rage Martin Bril smashed the machine. The gap in Dirk’s collection remained until now.