Vi minner om at de fine folkene på Norli Galleriet sørger for at Litterær Salong gjenoppstår fra de døde. Det er ikveld, på Grand Hotel Terminus klokken 19.00. Vi håper at gjenoppstandelsen blir mer Jesus enn Night of the Living Dead.

Temaet for kvelden er forfatterskapet til Tomas Espedals selvbiografiske trilogi, med innlegg fra Per Buvik, Anne Beate Maurseth, Martin Sørhaug og Henning Bergsvåg.

Foriøvrig har undertegnete en lesning av nevnte trilogi i siste nummer av Prosopopeia, der det også finnes et intervju med forfatteren. (Det blir anledning til å kjøpe bladet av undertegnete for kun kr. 75 på arrangementet).

good news

Remember the electoral map that got Bush elected? All those red states in the middle? Well, here's what that map looks like today.

You all probably know this allready, but for the love of God, don't open any attachments this week unless it's something you're expecting. There's a nasty virus going around. I've got about 3 kadrillion of them in my hotmail inbox right now. Specifically, don't open anything sized 75 or 76 kb.

Update: It's called the Sober virus. Here's a BBC page on it. Notice how the article has a picture of Paris Hilton for illustration photo sex-appeal, while it's all about how the virus email lures unsuspecting young men to open their attachments, looking for videos of Paris Hilton, seeming to say: "but we, the BBC, would never, ever do such a thing. Oh, how horrible, to use the poor young woman in this vicious manner."

Kant gjør standup II

Arvingen til en rik slektning ønsker å arrangere en høytidelig begravelse, men klager over at det ikke lykkes, "for (sier han) jo mer penger jeg gir de sørgende for å se triste ut, desto gladere blir de." Når vi hører denne fortellingen ler vi høyt (...)
--Immanuel Kant: Kritikk av Dømmekraften

Kant gjør standup I

Anta følgende historie: Ved bordet til en engelskmann i Surat åpner en inder en flaske øl. Alt ølet forvandles til skum og renner over, og ved hjelp av en mengde utrop gir inderen til kjenne sin forundring. På engelskmannens spørsmål om hva som er så merkelig, svarer han: "Jeg lurer ikke på hvorfor ølet renner over, men på hvordan det kom inn." Vi ler av denne fortellingen, og den gir oss en hjertelig lyst.
-- Immanuel Kant: Kritikk av Dømmekraften

iGasm?

For those wanting to take their relationship to Apple products further.

Noen på lesesalen over meg synger. Jeg har selv mer lyst til å skrike, men det er folk på min.

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
who could drink you under the table
David Hume could outconsume
Schopenhauer and Hegel
and Wittgenstein was a drunken swin
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

They bloody well did their writing under the influence, that's for sure.

"Pizza er pizza nettopp idet den er nytteløs. Pizza er løftet om metthet som blir brutt." (Theodor "Calzorno" Adorno: Kulinarisk Teori)

(Takk, Sara!)

Y.P.R.: The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Told Entirely in Emoticons.

It is what it sounds like.

Also, I remember seeing the very same most excellent and lamentable etc. in L33t-speak.

Skumleste søkestrengen som noensinne har gitt treff på bloggen min: "hvordan detonere man c4?" Fra danske google.

Uha da da.

Oppgave

Velg en av de følgende to oppgaver.

1. Diskuter noe greier om greiene på pensum og greier.
2. Drøft noe greier om pensumsgreiene og greier.

I didn't know they had Nigerians in Shanghai

This one was particularly juicy, I thought. Both because of the Oriental angle, and because of the absolutely wonderful highlighted paragraph, which is just wrong on so many levels.

Dear Sir/Ma

REPRESENTATIVE NEEDED

I represent The above named Company based in China. My company manufacture, supply and export Pharmaceutics, Agricultural, Textile and engineering chemical Products for world trade.

We are searching for representatives who can help us establish a medium of getting to our customers in Europe and America as well as making payments through you as our payment officer. In our just concluded Annual General Meeting (AGM) of September 30th 2005, A Board Member in this Company Mr Philip Churchill who explained why the company needed a representative and therefore adviced that responsible people could be employed using there e-mail address to contact them.

I as the UK branch officer of this multinational company have been directed to relate with you because of the communication problem faced by most of our Board Member since many of them cannot read, speak or write English Language except Chinnese which is our official Language Fluently.

In view of this you are expected to relate directly with me as the company representative since i have been mandated to contact you and give them frequent update about our activities.

Most of our customers pay out in cash, cheques or money orders and we do not have an account in U.S.A presently that will clear this money. It is upon this note that we seek your assistance to stand in as our representative in your country. Note that Details of your account is not needed in this transaction, Also, as our representative, you will receive 10% of whatever amount you clear for the company and the balance will be paid to us.If you are interested in this business transaction.

I shall love to hear from you soonest.

Thank you for your time.

Very Respectfully,

[Picture of dodgy-looking Chinese man and a signature]

Magnetic north of the political compass

So I took the Political Compass test again (I hear it's suddenly gotten in vogue again). I did this the last time in December of 2003. My new score is:

Economic Left/Right: -9.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -9.13

Which is to say, I'm a dope-smoking, homosexual, fetus-killing liberal, and slightly to the (economic) left of Stalin.

I like the idea of the political compass, I really do. But this thing makes me sound way more like an extremist than I really am. It is clear to me that this test was made in a liberal capitalist setting. While I have very libertarian views on most social issues, I am not a control-economy tubthumper. I am only slightly to the "left" of the social democratic mixed-economy principles. What throws the questionnaire off is that I have very restrictive views on multinational corporations' freedom to maneuver, while I have very liberal views on smaller businesses, which the test fails to ask for. The questions are skewed towards the right end of the spectrum. The magnetic north of the compass, to use a strained analogy, is further towards the right-wing side of the spectrum than it should be. (The analogy is strained because there can't be a "true" north.)

Another concern with me is that I have dropped about twenty points in libertarianism in two years. That means that around the time I'm turning seventy, I'll be slightly more conservative than the pope. It seems I have started my slow, but inevitable slide into conservatism. Somebody hand me a cigar and a place in the Freemasons lodge.

I bilen på vei hjem fra nevø M sin 8-årsdag med tilhørende familiefeiring, så jeg ut av vinduet og så at på Skoltegrunnskaien hang det et tre meter høyt banner med Coca-Colajulenissen på. Det var den 10 november. De holdt seg lenge i år, tenkte jeg.

Så jeg ble vel egentlig ikke helt overrasket over at Henning Gärtner dekonstruerer og rekonstruerer julen på sin nye blogg. Man kan simpelthen ikke være en del av de kapitalistiske maktstrukturer og ikke tenke på jul midt i november.

Did you know that George W. Bush affectionately refers to Vladimir Putin as "Pootie-poot"?

Me neither.

En interessant forsnakkelse på P2 nettopp:

"På pressekonferansen var det mange som ville vite om [X] hadde problemer med å være en såpass frigjort kvinne når hun vokset opp i en muslimsk kultur. Men vi må nok bare gjette, for [X] selv sa bare at hun ikke møtte noen særlige problemer."

Underforstått: hvis hun hadde sagt noe om problemer hadde vi ikke trengt å gjette, fordi vi tror alltid på alt negativt vi hører om islamske kulturer. Eller?

Cognitive dissonance

My LaunchCast player just played the following commercial interlude:

(sound of crickets chirping. Mild breeze ruffling through leaves.)

DEEP-VOICED, HAIRY-CHESTED MASCULINE ANNOUNCER: Be at one with nature. Sounds inviting, doesn't it? (slight pause. Voice drops an octave, into the Jerry Bruckheimer range) Share the adventure in the all-new 7-passenger Jeep Commander.

(Sound of car on gravel. Crickets do not stop chirping for a second, because the sound sample guy has never been near crickets.)

In case you're wondering, that's one of those gas-guzzlin' SUVs which ensure that there will be no nature anymore in, oh, about 15 minutes.

dagens aforisme

"Jeg er optimist. Allting overrasker meg."

(sagt av undertegnede ved en feiltagelse)

Jeg merket først idet jeg skulle klikke for å avgi min stemme i studentrådsvalget (elektronisk) at et av listene heter "eller klikk her for gratis porno." Jeg må innrømme at jeg har respekt for mennesker som går så langt for å gjennomføre en så dårlig vits. Husk: det finnes ikke dårlige vitser, bare vitser som ikke har blitt fortalt godt nok.

Og i øvrig så bør man straks gå og stemme på Mi Side, for fristen går ut idag kl. 16.00. Og la oss være ærlige: du har ennå ikke stemt.

Lutefisk? Ja, Lutefisk.

Even the ancient greeks had computers.

(They also had some other highly versatile analogue information technologies, especially one is important: a standardised document/graphics format which allowed near-perfect copying of documents and filesharing between users in a self-contained, portable display apparatus. They called it "paper" and "ink".)

One Day A Big Wind will Come

Bøygen, derimot, har skjønt det.

Man bemerker seg at Kraftsentrum og Vagant har fått seg nye hjemmesider. Fint for dem, det, men man lurer litt på hva i all verden de skal med dem? Man klikket seg inn med glede og iver, og innså med skuffelsen i hjertet at dekun inneholder en innholdsfortegnelse (ufullstendig, til og med!) og en mulighet for å abonnere. Gi oss innhold! Kast noen artikler til de sultne litteraturulvene!

(sånn parentetisk bemerket, så er vi i Prosopopeia ikke noe særlig mye bedre til akkurat det. Det der med hjemmesiden har gått litt fram og tilbake en stund, men det skal fikses snart. Lover. Men i det minste linker vi ikke til den, derfor denne steinen i glasshuset.)

TV2-nyhetene:
- Det har vært opptøyer i sentrum av Paris, og flere byer i resten av landet. Politiet ble møtt med bensinbomber da de prøvde å gripe inn i opptøyene...
- Og vi starter selvfølgelig med cupfinalen.*


* (For gudene skal vite at det ikke er et av de største landene i Europa som holder på å smuldre opp innefra.)

Skål og lenge leve republikken

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, twas his intent
To blow up king and parliament.
Three score barrels were laid below
To prove old England's overthrow.

By God's mercy he was catched
With a dark lantern and lighted match.
Holler boys, holler boys, let the bells ring
Holler boys, holler boys, God save the King

Her driver Geir Brede på med bloggkommentering på olympisk nivå. Søk i dokumentet på "Geir Brede" for å komme til de gode greiene.

The US Senate just went completely nuts.

In an extraordinary sign of the depth of political acrimony here, Democratic leaders employed a rarely invoked rule today to place the entire Senate in closed session for more than two hours, saying that the Republican majority had reneged on a promise to thoroughly investigate flawed intelligence used to justify the Iraq war.

Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the minority leader, caught Republicans by surprise when he invoked Rule 21 - a move that Republicans said had not been taken in more than 20 years.

Senator Reid said that while the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, had promised a thorough inquiry into prewar intelligence, including the way the White House had used or misused it, he had not followed through.

"I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted," Senator Reid said from the Senate floor, "and in accordance with Rule 21, I now move that the Senate go into closed session."

Does this mean that Stuff will actually happen about the Bush administration?

Well, probably not. Also, I'd like a pony.

Siden noen googlet dette diktet idag, og siden det nå en gang har blitt en slags tradisjon at jeg poster dette diktet i begynnelsen av november:

Året har 16 måneder: november, december
januar, februar, marts, april, maj,
juni, juli, august, september, oktober,
november, november, november, november.

(Henrik Nordbrandt, Håndens skælven i november)