*

TWITTER | @martingruner

    23.4.05

    Bokdag: plynderet

    Norlis bokmarked til inntekt for Leger Uten Grenser var skyld i en uhemmet fråtsing i bruktbøker. Dagens fangst: to bæreposer fyllt med

    Kristine Næss: Rita blir forfatter.
    Kristin Valla: Turister.
    Jan Kjærstad: Forføreren.
    Diverse: To fly styrtet i World Trade Center - tre meldinger, åtte essays og et dikt.
    Michel Foucault: Seksualitetens Historie, del 1: viljen til viten
    Per Olov Enquist: Livlegens besøk
    P. G. Wodehouse: My man Jeeves og Carry on, Jeeves i gamle utgaver.
    Diverse: Bauers Bok
    Espen Stueland: Sakte dans ut av brennende hus
    John Erik Riley: San Fransisco
    Katarina Kieri: Ikke akkurat noen gresk gud
    Cicely Berry: Voice and the actor
    Christopher F-B Grøndahl: Niveanatt
    Diverse: Sagaen om Gunnlaug Ormstunge og andre islandske sagaer
    Atiq Rahimi: Aske og Jord
    m.m.

    It's funny. I'd forgotten that in January, I posted a link to a blog post which is practically the same as the London Review article I linked to a few posts back. It's called What a Tangled Web We Weave . . . It's interesting, and highly credible.

    20.4.05

    Niels Henning Ørsted-Pedersen (1947 - 2005)

    Niels Henning Ørsted-Pedersen, som jeg intervjuet for kun to måneder siden, er død. Han ble 58 år gammel. Han var en stor musiker, og jeg savner ham allerede.

    Jeg kommer til å skrive en nekrolog litt seinere.

    Habeus Papam...

    Check out the picture. Somebody has a sense of humour over at Wikipedia.

    19.4.05

    Holy shit (pardon the pun)!That was fast.


    We found these frog eggs in a small pond up in the mountains. Mama Frog was hiding below them, and didn't want to come up.  Posted by Hello

    Kanskje jeg bare er utrolig treig i oppfattelsen, men jeg merker meg at Vinduet har fått seg fjonge nye websider som ser ut til å være elendig kalibrert for Firefox. Og så er det et bilde av Aslak Nore på forsiden som gir meg eksistensielt ubehag.

    Hei, ta og skriv under på oppropet til Noregs Mållag om å oppheve forbudet mot å skrive nynorsk i Dagbladet og VG. Gjør det fordi folk må få lov til å skrive deres eget skriftspråk i en kultur som forstår det, fordi de to skriftspråkene er sidestilte ved lov, og mest av alt: fordi det garantert er den eneste gang du noensinne kommer til å stå på en underskriftsliste sammen med både Jon Fosse, Valgerd Svarstad Haugland og Dagfinn Høybråten.

    17.4.05

    the infinite plasticity of the digital

    Here's a nice piece on Iraq, which was in the London Review of Books a while back. I was using it to research something, and I thought I'd share it with the general public: What I Heard about Iraq.

    Funny thing about this piece is that it seems like something you'd put up in a weblog, and the thing I kept thinking about when I read it was "can I really trust this?" It would be a much more powerful piece if every statement came with a link to the source.

    Actually, despite what William Gibson calls "the infinite plasticity of the digital", that is to say: the way in which all digital data can be changed at will (witness: the way the whitehouse.gov pages have been tweaked), there is a great deal of credibility to web arguments, because you can read the sources instantly. In some ways, even more credibility, as long as the data reflects the argument.

    14.4.05

    Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

    ...Og der sa vi takk til veiarbeiderne utenfor vinduet.

    I found that thing I was looking for a few months ago, the place where people can leave behind letters for when they die.

    Actually, I didn't find it through any rational process. What happened was, that I was listening to the Juliet Letters by Elvis Costello, and there's a song on it called "Dead Letter." And when I read that, I realised that the only name that that site could possibly have was something to do with Dead Letter. And it did. It's called the Dead Letter Office. Sometimes you can't beat intuition.

    13.4.05

    Eager to help the next generation of racers

    Courtesy of Googlism

    martin is increasing dealerships but keeping its mystique
    martin is new acrl program officer
    martin is 'blessed
    martin is knighted by simone martini
    martin is knighted
    martin is one of the caribbean's most liked
    martin is a good
    martin is peter pan
    martin is 'who's in' on er tv guide
    martin is appointed associate dean of arts and sciences
    martin is a hero
    martin is janet kyle on my wife and kids
    martin is well aware of the drumbeat of dissatisfaction
    martin is miss golf
    martin is chief financial officer for the u
    martin is a wildcat
    martin is a part of the family after years of playing just
    martin is cleared on murder count
    martin is professor of agricultural
    martin is killed in crash
    martin is a real
    martin is one of lynchburg
    martin is a south african musician
    martin is campaigning for on your behalf
    martin is a quiet contender
    martin is fast learner 11/26/00
    martin is eager to help the next generation of racers
    martin is appointed women's basketball coach
    martin is bashful
    martin is also the first
    martin is there to stay
    martin is on a roll
    martin is a real estate
    martin is back'' mail'
    martin is tactical
    martin is unlucky at love
    martin is sspc certified
    martin is a member of pdca
    martin is a great place for holiday vacation
    martin is looking for a few good
    martin is the only classic angler that fished first
    martin is a real estate agent in
    martin is
    martin is born
    martin is shy and charming
    martin is ready to cooperate with russia in
    martin is increasing dealerships but keeping its mystique intact eric mayne
    martin is new acrl visiting program officer
    martin is a vegetarian
    martin is a troll
    martin is the smallest island
    martin is off to babysit his nephews

    12.4.05

    Time machine

    Oy, people. Hop on the time machine over at Cleverland already. Don't be shy.

    Notes to the statistics

    Someone came to my site, from the google string: ragnfrid norway pronounce. Dude, its impossible. Just forget it.

    Second: somebody, somewhere-or-other is incredibly lazy.

    The reason I know this, is that I have gotten a kazillion hits in the past three days with some variation of the search string Marvell "to his coy mistress" analysis.

    What y'all are looking for is here, but you should be aware that I was being humorous when I wrote it. Can I suggest that you just write the damn paper yourself?

    Now, incidentally, I learned only today that my father actually quoted this poem in his wedding speech to my mother. An interesting synchronicity, but really, it is one of the funniest love poems I know of. The whole poem, copy-pasted for your reading pleasure, goes:

    To his Coy Mistress

    Had we but world enough, and time,
    This coyness, lady, were no crime.
    We would sit down and think which way
    To walk, and pass our long love's day;
    Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
    Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
    Of Humber would complain. I would
    Love you ten years before the Flood;
    And you should, if you please, refuse
    Till the conversion of the Jews.
    My vegetable love should grow
    Vaster than empires, and more slow.
    An hundred years should go to praise
    Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
    Two hundred to adore each breast,
    But thirty thousand to the rest;
    An age at least to every part,
    And the last age should show your heart.
    For, lady, you deserve this state,
    Nor would I love at lower rate.

    But at my back I always hear
    Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
    And yonder all before us lie
    Deserts of vast eternity.
    Thy beauty shall no more be found,
    Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
    My echoing song; then worms shall try
    That long preserv'd virginity,
    And your quaint honour turn to dust,
    And into ashes all my lust.
    The grave's a fine and private place,
    But none I think do there embrace.

    Now therefore, while the youthful hue
    Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
    And while thy willing soul transpires
    At every pore with instant fires,
    Now let us sport us while we may;
    And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
    Rather at once our time devour,
    Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
    Let us roll all our strength, and all
    Our sweetness, up into one ball;
    And tear our pleasures with rough strife
    Thorough the iron gates of life.
    Thus, though we cannot make our sun
    Stand still, yet we will make him run.

    -Andrew Marvell-

    The final piece of evidence that I live in a film noir movie, just arrived.

    - it's always raining.
    - it's always dark.

    and

    - There is actually, honestly, for real a guy playing jazzy tenor saxophone in the apartment downstairs. It echoes up the stairwell. You thought it was an urban myth? No, it happens.

    11.4.05

    Dette må være den mest åndsvake debatten norsk offentlighet har fostret på lenge.

    Alle som har lest noen verker fra det gamle Hellas vet at det var en sterk homoerotisk kultur i gamle Hellas. Å drive på og moderere Platon eller Sokrates til politisk korrekte ikke-praktiserende kristne homofile er på sitt beste spekulasjon som ikke er kildekritisk, på sitt verste ondsinnet propaganda. Vi vet ingenting. Vi har bare tilgang på fiktiv representasjon. Å spekulere i disse menneskers "faktiske" sexliv er nettopp det: spekulasjon, og derfor fullstendig uinteressant. Jeg tenker med en gang at det er politiske baktanker bak debatten.

    7.4.05

    Google has figured out the answer to The Big Question About Life, the Universe and Everything.

    5.4.05

    Dersom prøveforelesningen idag var noe å dømme etter, så burde Knut Olav Åmås' disputas til doktograden i mediavitenskap imorgen tidlig være veldig interessant. Å ta i mot hans biografi over Olav H. Hauge som doktorgrad var ganske fräscht av Gripsrud & co, og slett ikke dumt, ser det ut til.

    Inside joke II

    As a followup to yesterday's post about a physics paper, here is a similarly esoteric joke, but this time one I actually understand: Teresa Nielsen Hayden has the scoop. It's all about how you can get free term papers about Tolkien. It only makes sense if you are familiar with the Lord of the Rings.

    4.4.05

    Vårens viktigste litterære begivenhet

    Før jeg glemmer det: alle (ALLE) må komme på sleppefesten til det nye nummer av Prosopopeia på onsdag.

    Ane skriver:

    Litteraturtidsskriftet Prosopopeia markerer sitt nye nummer med sleppefest på Kamelon(tidl. Blue Velvet) onsdag 6. april. Det blir opplesning ved Olaug Nilssen, Øyvind Rimbereid og Endre Ruset, alle spennende og aktuelle bergensforfattere, og vi kan ellers love god stemning og kjekke mennesker!

    I tillegg blir det selvsagt anledning til å få tak i rykende ferske Prosopopeia
    1-2/2005, med temaene all-alderlitteratur og dekonstruksjon, som er stappfullt med spennende tekster om alt fra Pippi Langstrømpe til Paul de Man, i tillegg til bla. skjønnlitterære tekster, anmeldelser og essays!

    Dørene åpner klokka 19, og vi begynner klokka 20. Uten blad koster det usle 30 kroner, mens inngang+blad koster 50 kroner, like mye som bare bladet koster ellers.

    Absolutt alle er hjertelig velkomne!

    Inside joke I

    There's something almost poetic about this: this physics paper is actually a joke. An April fools joke, to be exact. And I can't for the life of me understand it.

    Why coverage of funeral rites is bad tv

    Ok, so the most powerful religious leader in the world dying: it's a big deal. I get it. But now, CNN and BBC have turned into The Pope Channel: All Pope, All The Time.

    Which, I guess, clearly demonstrates the fact that tv is a lousy medium for covering ongoing events unless something of importance is happening, continually. It worked on 9-11, because 9-11 couldn't have been better tv if someone sat down and scripted it. There was an incredibly well-drawn dramaturgy, ending with the collapse of the towers.

    The death of the pope, however, is lousy tv, given that it's sort of in the nature of the event that nothing more of any relevance will happen between the death of it's protagonist, and the endpoint of the no-doubt drawn-out selection process of a new pope. The protagonist is dead. That sort of kills the action right there.

    Now, I'm not saying that I'm sorry that there weren't more explosions involved in the death of the pope. What I'm saying is that the reporting that the television media can produce of such an event, when it is ongoing, is, in its nature, lousy. Ill-prepared, unanalyzed raw material flung at us, ridiculous interview situations where the interviewer tries to draw out time by getting the interview object to ruminate on life and death, where every little detail of the ritualised death of the pope is picked over and over and over by the vultures, thrilled that something is happening. Something which will allow them to keep the attention of the public for a little while longer.

    Tv news is suited for covering sharply delineated events. Things that happen, and then cease to happen. It is very bad at covering ongoing processes. I mean, when was the last time you heard the story "millions of children worldwide are working for practically no wage in sweatshops in order to produce goods for the globalised marketplace. Western capitalism as we know has produced an indentured workforce in the third world. Here's Carl with the weather." For some reason, the major news networks haven't understood exactly how little happens following the death of a pope.

    The pope died. Thanks for informing me. Thanks for spending a few hours on a retrospective. Thanks for mentioning it again in your hourly news updates for the next couple of days. Anything beyond that, I can, and should, read it in a newspaper if I want to.

    3.4.05

    John Paul II / Karol Wojtyla (1920 - 2005)

    His pontificate passed away last night. For a man who was pretty much the most conservative man alive by definition, he was actually surprisingly radical. He had good sides and bad sides, and one shouldn't make him completely a saint or a sinner after his death. He did good things (I was particularly happy he was such a strong defender of human rights), and he did bad things (announcing that condoms don't stop aids, condemning homosexuality etc). I'm very excited to hear who the next one will be.

    Anyone interested in his long and interesting life should read the New York Times mammoth 21-page obituary.