HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy new year, everyone! We're off to party like it's 1999.

Godt nyttår, og takk for det gamle.

A Susan Sontag memorial

If you're not familiar with the recently deceased Susan Sontag, or if you are, but want to read more, I suggest you have a look at the New York Times memorial page to her. They have a lot of her writing there, and articles and reviews about and of her work. A highlight is a fantastic essay she wrote last May about Abu Ghraib and the photographs from there, called Regarding the Torture of Others.

Read it before it goes away.

Santa came late

I'm sort of casually sitting at my kitchen table writing this, not in the living room where the access point is. Long extension cables, you think? No! I'll be submitting it through my wireless network. No more horrible tumbleweed-style wire nests on the floor! Hooray!

An overnight blog coordinating info on the tsunami has popped up:

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/

They post everything related to help, current status, etc. They say:

How you can help

1. Please pass this URL around.

2. You can use THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THIS POST to post any info you have on:where to send money,what kind of help is needed,aid organisations,helplines,infolines,email addresses,phone numbersnews updates

3. If you're a blogger, and would like to help us out by taking up posting duties, the same post has email addresses of the current contributors who can send you a blogger invitation. It would be nice having people around the world taking this up in shifts.

60.000 are dead from the tsunami, at least. More will die soon from aftereffects: epidemics, lack of medical attention, clean water, medicine. I feel helpless. I urge everyone to donate money to help the victims. I've just given what pitifully little I have to spare to Medecins Sans Frontieres (Leger Uten Grenser). If you're in Norway, you can also donate at:

RØDE KORS
Givertelefon: 820 43 000 - (kr 100,-)
Nett-/telegiro: 8200 06 08331

REDD BARNA
Nett-/telegiro: 8200 01 03000

NORSK FOLKEHJELP (Sri Lanka)
Nett-/telegiro: 8200 01 03000

KIRKENS NØDHJELP
Givertelefon 820 43 033 (kr 100,-)
Nett-/telegiro: 1602 40 26535

STRØMMESTIFTELSEN (Sri Lanka)
Givertelefon 820 43 013, (kr. 100,-)
Nett-/telegiro: 6319 07 62000

If you are elsewhere, seek out your local branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres, or whatever similar organisations are active in your home country.

(The picture above is Hokusais "Great Wave." I keep thinking about it when I hear news reports.)

Susan Sontag (1933 - 2004)

Susan Sontag is dead. She died of leukemia earlier today, age 71. I only just started reading her less than a year ago, and now she's dead. This is what caught my fancy: Against Interpretation. A fantastic essay.

I know it seems shallow posting an obituary for a single person when at least 60.000 people have just died in SE Asia, but I can't really cope with that.

To the guy in Peru who came to my site because I happened to use the Spanish word for paedophile on the same page as some words which you don't want the word "child" to be associated with, I would like to say:

fuck off, you impotent waste of space. You are pond scum, and we hate you.

And, in case you don't know what I look like, and would like to, that's me over on Ragnfrids blog.

White christmas (view from balcony). 

Happy birthday, Ragnfrid.

She bought the camera for us, and I bought the silver pendant around her neck for her. I found it in a vintage/antique store after 6 hours of looking. It was literally buried under a heap of other pendants. The guy who sold it to me told me as he was selling it to me that it is of sami origin. Which, coincidentally, R is as well.

Mitt eget personlige helvete

Når jeg har vært under intenst stress, f.eks. etter slåsskamper, bilulykker eller de verste eksamener (ikke at det er noe jeg opplever ofte), så blir mitt minne av begivenheten ofte svært fragmentarisk og usammenhengende. Ofte bare noen få nøkkelhendelser sitter igjen, og så gjerne noen mystiske fragmenter som ikke passer inn noe sted. Derfor vil jeg gjengi gårsdagens julehandel i denne, litt sånn snapshot-aktige formen.

Generelt: Vått. Kaldt. Sure mennesker overalt.

Stivnede, angst-frembringende ansiktsuttrykk på nissene i Sundt-vinduet. Minner meg samtidig om prostituerte på utstilling i Amsterdam og dukken Chucky fra Child's Play-filmene. En skare av barn står hypnotisert foran glasset. Jeg husker (absurd nok) at jeg tenker at ansiktene til dukkene er det stivnede smilet til en cocktail-vertinne som innser at hun akkurat har spurt hvordan det går med datteren som døde ifjor.

Smokken til et ungt barn, sprukket og knust under de panserbeslåtte støvlene til julestriden, utenfor Norli på Torgallmenningen.

Puff, puff, puff. "Nei jeg har sluttet å røyke." Puff, puff, puff. "Bare min andre tipakning idag." Puff puff puff.

En ung kvinne, til sin klynkende, velfriserte kjæreste, om/til den lille, klynkende men velfriserte hunden i armene hennes:
"Slutt å syt! Han syter hele tiden Få han til å slutte å syte."
"Hvorfor syter han?"
"Bare fordi han ikkje har fått nåkke å drikke idag. Kan eg få ut 400 kroner i tillegg? SLUTT Å SYT, SA EG!"

En butikk som ser ut til å være et mislykket forsøk på å bli til verden. Som vil ha alle ting i verden inn i seg, med en sterkt systematisk mangel på system.

Overhørt fra bakrommet til en gullsmed: "FORFERDELIG stygt! FORFERDELIG!"

En invokering av de store talls lov, som for en gangs skyld ga pote.

ca 300 milliarder, 417 tusen, fem hundrede og tolv komma syv forskjellige varianter av forferdelige butikker med generiske smiletryner bak disken.

En voldsomt luguber mann som prøvde å selge meg gull.

En brukket paraply.

Tre gaver.

Tilfeldig? Neppe.

Både VG, Dagbladet og BA har store oppslag på førstesiden idag som omhandler folk som mirakuløst har overlevd kriser og blitt lykkelige igjen. Jeg ser for meg redaksjonsmøtet:

-Det er jo jul, liksom. Folk har lyst til å høre en solskinnshistorie.
-Hva med (ho berten/hun damen/han gutten) som overlevde (den brannen/to hjerteoperasjoner/å være fanget i et snøskredd) og ble (pen igjen/verdens beste danser/frisk og fotogen og litt sånn Kids-say-the-darndest-things-søt)?
-JA! Det er bra! Det selger! Solskinnshistorie! Så bra!

Og publikum:

-Å! Se! Så fint! Hun/han overlevde! Og så pen! Solskinnshistorie! Nå er det riktig jul. Skal vi gå og kjøpe en julegran og pepperkaker?
-Så nydelig! Og vi må heller kjøpe avisen også.

Newsflash: FOLK DØR STADIG I JULEN. OPPTIL FLERE HAR DET DRITKJIPT. JA, UANSETT HVA DU LESER I AVISEN.

Så det så. God jul, alle sammen.

Ok, Susanne tells me postmodernism isn't dead. Postmodernism lives! You heard it here first. Pass it on.

Skin

My curiosity is killing me: "Skin" by Shelley Jackson. One word tattooed on one person. 2095 words in the entire story. I've been hearing about this thing for months, maybe years, and I've been dying to read the whole thing, but only participants, it seems, will ever get to read the whole thing. I like the writing in this New York Times piece on it:

For others, the motives are social: Jackson is encouraging her far-flung words to get to know each other via e-mail, telephone, even in person. (Imagine the possibilities. A sentence getting together for dinner. A paragraph having a party.)

and

(...) when a participant meets his or her demise, Jackson vows, she will try to attend that person's funeral. But the 41-year-old author understands that some of her 2,095 collaborators, many of whom are in their 20's, might outlive her. If she dies first, she says, she hopes several of them will come to her funeral and make her the first writer ever to be mourned by her words.

Jeg må ha postet mens jeg skrev ved et uhell. Vet ikke hvordan det skjedde, men det er totalt pomo, så jeg lar det stå slik.

Postmodernism is dead. You heard it here first. No, really.

Postmodernism is dead. You heard it here first. No,

Postmodernism is dead. You heard it here first.

Drøm om dørklokke

Jeg snakket i søvne, ble vekket av en imaginær ringeklokke. Våknet først helt, idet jeg stod med dørtelefonen i hånden og sa "hallo" til en tom 6-om-morgenen-gate. Sjanglet tilbake i seng, men kunne ikke sove fordi det stod to russere på min balkong og snakket høylydt. Kort tid etter begynte boringen i veggene.

Let the day of your birth be darkness

Sorry I haven't been posting for the past few days. I've been trying and failing to combat a completely crippling virus attack which tied my computer into knots and ran loops around it. At the end, the system was so overloaded with unnecessary processes, that the final virus scan which identified the last files to kill off took 74 hours. I found not one, not two, but three different viruses. Little fuckers. Your ass is MINE, now, biatches.

There was probably an easier way to do that, but I couldn't figure it out.

Nonetheless, please allow me at this point to interrupt regular programming to curse the name of the people who wrote the virii until the end of their miserable lives:

You. You worthless pieces of shit. I know you think you're hot stuff, but I consider the day you were born a defect in the space-time continuum. Nonetheless, it having happened, we must all try to cope with the cataclysmic existential crisis brought on by the very fact that we can deduce you to exist by signs you leave in the world, in much the same way that one can smell rotting flesh when hyenas are nearby, or the way one can assume the existence of a dog when one steps in dogshit. But now that you are in the world and we have to make do with what we can. I for one, choose to cope, by cursing your name and getting all warm and fuzzy inside at the very thought that there is a statistical possibility that tomorrow, you may contract a horrible skin disease, which will make you itch like a thousand fleas never could for the rest of your miserable life. You are the scum of the earth. You will never be anything but scum, and I hope the realisation of that will finally drive you under.

Okay. Thank you for your patience. Normal service resumes tomorrow.

Pink triangles and charred sonnets

Remember how I mentioned Gerald Allen? The republican from Alabama who proposes a law banning positive renditions of homosexuality in state sponsored...well, anything? The Guardian has interviewed him. It's a funny piece. Starts out with the usual introduction and review of his opinions with the very slight editorial slant we've come to expect from Europe's leading left-leaning newspaper. Then it just gets more and more hysterically opposed to him, quoting him directly to show how inarticulate and unknowledgeable he is, and hints more than a little that Allen is himself a closet homosexual:

I ask him, again, for specific examples. Although heterosexuals are apparently an endangered species in Alabama, and although Allen is a local politician who lives a couple miles from my house, he can't produce any local examples. "Go on the internet," he recommends. "Some time when you've got a week to spare," he jokes, "just go on the internet. You'll see."

Actually, I go on the internet every day. But I'm obviously searching for different things. For Allen, the web is just the largest repository in history of urban myths. The internet is even better than the Bible when it comes to spreading unverifiable, unrefutable stories. And urban myths are political realities. Remember, it was an urban myth (an invented court case about a sex education teacher gang-raped by her own students who, when she protested, laughed and said: "But we're just doing what you taught us!") that all but killed sex education in America.

And it just keeps going and going, showing how his law would ban big chunks of Shakespeare, showing how there is no idea how this law will be used in practice. And then, the grand finale.

Forty years ago, the American defenders of "our culture" and "traditional values" were opposing racial integration. Now, no politician would dare attack Cornelius Carter [a famous gay choreographer also profiled in the article] for being black. But it's perfectly acceptable to discriminate against people for what they do in bed.

"Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it."

Of course, Allen was talking about books. He was just talking about books. He never said anything about pink triangles.

(Pink triangles were the sign gay people were made to wear in nazi concentration camps, their equivalent of the yellow star of David). It's like the writer of the article sat down, tried to write a sorta-balanced piece, but then totally cracked up in the face of the absurd, hyperbolic homophobia coming out of this senators mouth.

Normally, this school of journalism makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. If you compare someone to Hitler or mention that some political stance will inevitably "lead to Auschwitz," you know you can just pack your bags and leave credibility behind. There's a "law" of internet discussions called "Godwins law." It states that as any discussion involving politics grows longer, the probability of someone comparing their opposition to Hitler or nazis approaches one. A vital corollary to this law is that when this happens, probability of that discussion having meaning or value approaches zero. I've taken this law to heart, and hence usually run away screaming when this happens.

In fact, I can't think of a single instance (not involving neo-nazis or ultra-ultra-right-wing politicians) where the comparison has made sense. But here, it does. A man actually dedicated to regulating what people do in their bedroom out of love or lust. I don't understand these people, but I do understand that this idiot, who probably never read a book in his life, is proposing to regulate a part of society that will not let itself be regulated: sexuality. When that happens, either an extreme form of regulation (pink triangles) happen, or the out-of-sight version: a removal from view of the public eye, a few token arrests, books burned, cultures shut down, a whole slice of humanity being forced to turn concrete grey, don nondescript clothing and blend in with the walls so that people wont notice the lives they wish for under the camuflage.

I think in this case, the comparison is not just apt, but appropriate. I know I'm kicking down an open door here, but why don't we just call this guy a fascist, get someone else to take his place in the midterms, who will approve funding people going around with megaphones in small-town predominantly white, KKK-style christian neighbourhoods with megaphones shouting "WAAAAKE UUP!!!" at the top of their lungs, and everything will be okay. Y'know. Either that, or make sure "queer eye for the straight guy" gets national syndication. OK? It's either that or book burnings. Not an easy choice, I know.

The Asians Dying

William Gibson quotes a very beautiful poem in his blog today. It's by a poet I have to confess I haven't heard of. His name is W.S. Mervin, and the poem, which appears to be about the Vietnam War, is called The Asians Dying.

THE ASIANS DYING

When the forests have been destroyed their darkness remains
The ash the great walker follows the possessors
Forever
Nothing they will come to is real
Not for long
Over the watercourses
Like ducks in the time of ducks
The ghosts of the villages trail in the sky
Making a new twilight

Rain falls into the open eyes of the dead
Again again with its pointless sound
When the moon finds them they are the color of everything

The nights disappear like bruises but nothing is healed
The dead go away like bruises
The blood vanishes into the poisoned farmlands
Pain the horizon
Remains
Overhead the seasons rock
They are paper bells
Calling to nothing living

The possessors move everywhere under Death their star
Like columns of smoke they advance into the shadows
Like thin flames with no light
They with no past
And fire their only future

La oss leke "finn den skjulte allegorien"

Teksten som har fått meg til å le mest de siste par dager (til tross for en graverende ord delings feil i tittelen, for det heter jo selvsagt vidvinkelstev, ikke vidvinkel stev):

Vidvinkelstev

Det var ein tidleg morgon at eg gjekk i skogen inn.
Eg fann ei edel kvinne der med rose raude kinn.
Eg sa: "kva gjer ei møy som deg i svarte skogen her?"
"eg tek snapshots med mit kamera" sa ho, då eg kom nær.

Det er ein merkedag det her, mi kjære møy sa eg.
For eg er og ein fotograf med same mål som deg.
Så fekk ho ta min Nikon F i hennar kvite hand.
Ho sa: "så flott eit apparat du har min gode mann."

Mitt kamera lika ho så vel at utan vente tid,
så åpna ho den fløyelkledde kameraveska si.
"slikt utstyr har eg aldri sett, mi kjære møy" sa eg.
"lat meg få dra stativet ut, så tek vi same veg."

Så knipsa vi mot solefall, og så mot låvedør.
Uvande vinklar fann vi flust som ikkje var funne før.
Ho hadde åpen blendar og lang eksponeringstid.
Eg hadde farga filter på mitt teleobjektiv

Slikt lag med film og kamera har eg aldri sett, min venn.
Ho had'kje før fått rullen ut, så var ho budd igjen
Og når til sist eg såg at det var slutt på filmen min.
Så fanga ho oss båe inn med sjølvutløysaran sin.

Ho sa: "Eg har hatt Kodak, eg har hatt ein Hasselblad.
Pentax og Minolta tykte eg var nokså bra.
Yashika og Olympus kunne også godt gå an.
Men å knipsa med din Nikon F, var topp min gode mann."

-Lillebjørn Nilsen-
(Som Ragnfrid som ledd i en julefeiring i oktober i North Dakota har gjensidig lovet alltid å elske).

Brainstorm om Sophie Calle, Paul Auster og "the music of chance"

Jeg tror ikke helt at jeg fikk dette til å henge på greip, men jeg publiserer det nå uansett. Det er for tidlig på morgenen til å tenke tunge tanker. Skal kanskje jobbe mer med det senere.

Jeg mistenker at denne artikkelen om Sophie Calle kanskje sier mer om hvorfor jeg leser andres blogger enn noe jeg har lest på lenge.

Da jeg gikk på ungdomsskolen, jeg tror det kanskje var i 7de eller 8de klasse, fant jeg en kopi av Paul Austers Leviathan i min fars bokhylle. Jeg leste den, og fikk en enorm leseropplevelse. Det var et av disse store øyeblikk hvor man skjønner hva litteratur er og kan være. og var på mange måter den mest lystbetonte lesning av "anerkjent" litteratur jeg til da noensinne hadde hatt. Tidligere, når jeg hadde lest annen stor litteratur, hadde det alltid vært et element av tvang, eller tyngde. En følelse av vente på at plottet skulle gå igang. Med Paul Auster, kanskje på grunn av noe så enkelt som at han bruker thrilleren som et utgangspunkt, var jeg plutselig sugd inn i verket.

Historien i L. er, kort fortalt, historien om en forfatters venn, som gjennom en rekke med troverdige, men usannsynlige hendelser, ender opp med å gjennomgå en fullstendig forandring i livssituasjon og identitet. Tilfeldighetene er bare tilfeldigheter, men akkurat som i livet er det disse som har størst effekt på en.

Det var rett og slett noe med Paul Auster, og særlig denne boken, som resonerte stort med meg, og jeg har vært fan av Paul Auster siden (selv om hans produksjon siden den gang ikke har vært like fantastisk som det tidligere). Nettopp i Leviathan er det at en av karakterene er en kunstner som følger etter folk, som finner en adressebok og begynner å ringe numrene i dem. Hun er basert på Sophie Calle. Det som resonerte med meg, var nok det samme som gjorde at Paul Auster ble tiltrukket av Sophie Calle, og brukte henne i boken.

En tiltrekning til det tilfeldige, en følelse av at universets absurde koblinger ga like mye mening som ethvert bevisst valg. Følelsen av finne en tråd i et sett med spor, og så å begynne å følge den tråden, og finne ut at den stadig ga like mye mening som alt annet. Det var kanskje nøyaktig den samme impulsen i meg som gjorde at jeg for første gang begynte å lese en blogg fast, for fire år siden. Til tross for at personen på den andre enden kanskje ikke var voldsomt interessant, så var det noe der. En kontakt mellom dokumentene som forelå. En følelse av å bli kjent, ikke med noen, men med noe. Noe helt annet. Å finne tråden, å nøste den opp, å følge historien til sin logiske konklusjon (men historien har ikke noen logisk konklusjon, oppdaget jeg selvsagt ganske raskt), og gjennom dette å prøve å oppdage noe.

Det går bortenfor voyerisme. Det er ikke innblikk eller intimitet det handler om. Først og fremst handler det selvsagt om skrift, og om litteratur. Så handler det om å se disse absurde koblinger; å innse at koblingene finnes overalt, uansett om man er logisk eller ikke. Universet og historien rimer, og det er rimene som gir livet en estetisk helhet, for å si det litt sånn Lukacsk. Og det er den opplevelsen man får når blogging virker, og det er den opplevelsen jeg fikk når jeg leste Leviathan.

Well... that was the most fun I've had reading a web page in ages. Too bad I couldn't possibly link to it.

Let me just, as an aside here, say that I am so happy the Ukrainean crisis seems to have been resolved. I'm happy because for the first time in the history of the former USSR, a judicial body showed integrity. I'm happy because I haven't seen such a powerful will to democracy in a long, long time, and it was clearly time for it in Ukraine. I'm happy that US-Russia tensions have a chance at being resolved, because for a moment there, I thought we were going back to cold war status. But mostly, I'm happy because the people finally seem to have understood the rule that "anyone who is trying to keep the vote from being properly implemented is per definition not your friend." I don't understand that certain other countries of considerably greater size and relative democratic proficiency are having trouble understanding this.

And there was much rejoicing

Finally! After nearly four months in computer lab hell, a hardline to the internet in the privacy of our very own home!

A screensaver which overloads spam sites, causing them to lose money due to bandwidth problems. Very interesting. If this works, the world will be a better place.

Jeg friker alltid ut når jeg innser at folk googler navnet mitt. Finnes det folk derute som (... gisp!) tenker på meg? Når jeg ikke er tilstede?

Ikke desto mindre så ga min referral-tjeneste meg idag den interessante opplysning idag at de få som beslutter seg for å søke på navnet mitt på msn istedetfor google kan oppdage at jeg stadig jobber som deskjournalist i den dotcom-boblende bedriften Nettdoktor.no. Dette til tross for at den har vært nedlagt i snart fire år.

Tearing words from the dictionary

MONTGOMERY - An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries.

A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen said he filed the bill to protect children from the "homosexual agenda."

The "homosexual agenda?" Are these people for real? This is an elected representative, proposing grilled book a la Hitler.

What he proposes would eliminate every mention of homosexuality from public litterature or research. Everything. From Plato to Oscar Wilde to Ragnfrid. I'm reminded of what Alan Moore wrote, in his graphic essay "The Mirror of Love:"

[Margaret Thatcher] let a clause pass into law that her chief minister for Local Government described as being aimed at banishing all trace of homosexuality : The act itself, all gay relationships, even the abstract concept would be gone, a word torn from the dictionary.

Why do people insist on making war on words these days? "Terror," "homosexuality," "evolution." What's next? "Gravity?" "Socialists?"

[Edit: Bookslut suggests that anyone living in the US "call Allen at (205) 556-5310 to let him know what you think about his proposed law."]