SG Collins said this about me (blatantly stolen from his site)
There are some people in one's life the sight of whom is simply reassuring. You see somebody sitting in a certain chair, and you know that here is still here, and we are still us. For me one of those people is Kees Huyser.
Apart from being the fella most often seated on the fool's corner stool at Mulligans, Kees has the distinction of being one of mankind's earliest web-masters. The third one, to be exact.
"I am, at this point in the time-space continuum, a fifty-odd-year-old webmaster. graphics designer and system administrator. I have more hair on my chin than on the top of my head. I have lived in Amsterdam mostly since birth and consider myself a 100 percent Amsterdammer."
Kees studied at Amsterdam's Graphische School and spent part of his young life as a bookbinder. His love affair with computers started when he took a desk job as a lowly bureaucrat at the Ziekenfonds ("sick-people's foundation" or national health service). Kees says he quickly got bored rubber-stamping doctor letters and typing "De Weledelzeergeleerde heer Dr. J. Jansen, arts — The Extremelynobleverylearned Mister Dr. J. Jansen, MD" on envelopes. When it became evident he had a knack for computer wizardry — as he could type the password to turn on the terminal — Kees was invited to become a system administrator. After a few years in the Ziekenfonds' IT department, in 1986 he got a more interesting offer at the National Institute for Nuclear and High Energy Physics.
In the early 1990s, as Kees describes it, "Tim Berners Lee over at CERN (the European High Energy Physics Lab in Geneva) had invented the World Wide Web. My collegue Willem van Leeuwen over at the High Energy Department was asked by Tim to try and install a web daemon to see if WWW traffic would work over a longer distance than 100 meters. Willem installed the daemon, and it did work. He then asked me to install a web daemon, because it would give us tremendous benefits, or so he claimed. I was not too sure about this 'web stuff' since I thought the exisiting 'gopher' service we had could do the same thing. After a few days I gave in to Willem's constant badgering and installed the CERN web daemon. Later it turned out I had the third computer outside CERN with a web daemon.
"Tim Berners Lee is now Sir Tim Berners Lee, Willem van Leeuwen was honoured at the 9th WWW Conference in 2000 — and I update the Mulligans website on a regular basis. This goes to show that there's nothing good at being number three."
Today Kees has an office in a rambling science campus in the southeastern suburb of Watergraafsmeer, with a bunch of computers and one of those huge flatscreen monitors that make guys like me jealous. Because of his graphic training, he also designs for PhD theses, posters, books and annual reports for the Institute. "This job gives me an extreme amount of freedom in what I want to do. It's like letting me play in one of the most expensive playgrounds in the world, without having to pay for the rides."
But don't worry, they don't let Kees play with atomic reactors. At least I hope not. He says he's fond of taking things apart and putting them back together.
Except when he's got his nose in a history book, Kees strikes me as an accessible and plainspoken guy with a healthy sense of humor. Thus he has made some cool friends over the years (and maybe some uncool ones too, he just doesn't bring them out in public). For example he's the one who introduced me to Joeri Teeuwisse, a filmmaker and historical consultant who is involved with re-enactments and documentaries about Nederland during the German occupation. Fascinating woman.
Kees has a thing for historical re-enactments too — it's one of his hobbies and sometimes takes him pretty far afield.
"I've been a Viking-era re-enactor since 1995 and got involved in WW2 re-enactment about three years ago. This came through an old hobby of mine, kit building. I loved to build WW2 tank models and airplanes. When I realised I could play with the 1:1 models, I joined a WW2 group. Here too my graphics background comes into play: I do a lot of re-typesetting of WW2 documents for re-enactment groups — everything from K-rations to Kodak Super-XX film boxes, to theater tickets for long since vanished theaters — to give a re-enactor enough paper in his or her pockets to look convincing. 'Counterfeit Kees' they call me."
Given his historical interests, I wanted to sound Kees out about his feelings for his home city — likes, dislikes, hopes and fears etc. As a foreigner I know I have a peculiar nostalgia for Amsterdam as the headstrong, self-reliant city-state. I ask if Kees thinks there is still a spirit of verzet (resistance) smoldering in Amsterdam's heart, or am I just dreaming.
"Of course there is," Kees says. "Amsterdam has always been contrary. We always elect a left-wing council, even when the general idea is to go right-wing. In the first national elections in which the LPF (Pim Fortuijn's right wing party) stood for seats, Amsterdam had the lowest number of people voting LPF of any major city. LPF is big in Rotterdam. They're not even on the council in Amsterdam. The labor party (PvdA) has fifteen seats in the council, the VVD (lib-cons) have only nine. When in the rest of the world Muslims and Jews are trying to exterminate each other, in Amsterdam last week the mayor Job Cohen (a Jew) invited alderman Ahmed Aboutaleb (a Muslim) to come live in the official mayoral mansion until he had found a house in Amsterdam. Resistance? Hell yes, let's show the world you can do things differently.
"Amsterdam is changing both faster and slower than other cities. Faster since a lot of original Amsterdammers have moved out to the dormitory cities around Amsterdam, and this changes the makeup of the city. Slower since almost every newcomer to Amsterdam feels an Amsterdammer after a year or two. This has been a constant in the history of Amsterdam. In the nineteenth century, people here complained about the large influx of Brabanders looking for work. If you ask old Amsterdammers where their ancestors came from you might be surprised. Amsterdam is the big melting pot avant la lettre. ... I like foreigners, they bring in new ideas. Talking to the same people day after day gets boring."
When I ask Kees to list the worst architectural mistakes in the history of Amsterdam, I discover I'm not alone in my sentiments about the former site of the Paleis voor Volksvlijt.
"The Nederlandse Bank is a square monstrosity which should not have been allowed to build; adding the penoid tower structure to it was adding insult to injury. A good second is the new annex to the Anne Frank house. Here you have a nice old canal house, and to cater to the gazilion tourists that come to gaze at it every year they've added a glass and concrete shack to the side which looks completely out of place on the canal. Third is the the new foyer of the Concertgebouw. Again they've added glass, concrete and steel to a lovely old building."
His favorite spots? The bridges. "I always have to stop when I cross a bridge and lean over the railing to look at boats on the canal, spit in the water and smoke a cigarette. Bridges are amongst the finest inventions of mankind: they let you cross from one place to another without getting your feet wet. And they're both perfect boundaries as well as perfect links between different areas. Leaning over a bridge railing lets you look both forward and backward at the same time."
For new visitors to Amsterdam Kees advises including a stop in the Begijnhof, near the Spui. "I think the Begijnhof is a monument of rest in a busy city. Check out the Scottish Presbyterian Church there. For Americans: this is were the Pilgrim Fathers prayed before leaving for the New World. And have a look in the French Catholic Church opposite. The priest there, Father Brown, will hear confessions in French, English and Irish." Beyond that, Kees has the usual good tourism advice: just start walking along the canals. If you ever feel lost, just look for the curvature in the canal belt, and turn at 90 degrees to the inner curve and you'll end up at Centraal.
"There's no way to get lost," he assures us. I assume he's referring to those tourists who haven't ingested several grams of Cali Mist.
By the way, Kees considers himself a fairly outsized Nederlander. One time he told me he's almost overweight enough to apply for American citizenship. I ask him where he buys his clothes. His answers may be useful for those among us who don't quite fit the slim-trim Neder-fietser profile — or those who happen to be vikings.
"For Viking clothes, I buy the material — home spun wool or linen — from traders at Viking markets. I have a few good lady friends who then turn those lengths of cloth into trousers, tunics and cloaks. WW2 uniforms I buy from a guy in India. He is the third generation of tailors to make clothes for the Indian Army, and he has branched out into the re-enactment market. You can't beat his price! For everyday clothes, I buy T-shirts online, dress shirts in a shop in Hamburg, Germany. Trousers I buy at Holzhaus, since they're one of the few that stock larger sizes. Underwear I buy at the HEMA. Shoes I get from Zwartjes in the Utrechtsestraat."
Talking to Kees I feel a sort of intellectual generosity emanating from him, as if nothing much is being concealed. Most likely he has a somber and taciturn side too, like the rest of us — but he doesn't wear it on his sleeve. I think Kees is the antithesis of those people who treat knowledge as private property. Imparting what he knows seems to be a pleasure for him. He's clever but straightforward, so you get the feeling he will always tell you the truth.
"I'm usually fairly open about what I am and what I think," he says. "So most people who know me tell me to be more diplomatic in my utterances. I think they might be right; diplomacy is the oil in the social machine and I'm more used to throwing in the spanner."