news [archive 36]

13.06.2008: sometimes, i think it is the mammoth that is stalking me.

so forget what i said about me coming back to england. i think it's more likely to be from july 21st (or thereabouts) until probably sometime after my birthday. sorry for the confusion and the mess. i was just trying to rush things in a panic. and i almost had it sorted when mogwai went and signed up for roskilde, throwing the whole thing back into chaos. i can't blame them, but i can try. also be warned that this neither is final. that is some kind of, i don't know, disclaimer or something.

so what to do for my birthday? any suggestions? whatever it is, all are welcome.

oh, and there's now writings and photos from my travels around north jutland, if you're interested. that might somehow make up for my otherwise lackluster level of activity. there are 54 photos to look at too, which tell the whole story seperately through a visual narrative. er. and they're mostly of julie, which i think has less to do with her quality as a model than with a distinct and definate change in my photography. i used to hate taking photographs of people. if you look at my old holiday photos they are devoid of people. i actually used to stand and wait until people moved, as if the buildings were more important. but no more. i have developed and grown up a little. albeit very slowly. or some pretentious shit like that. i don't know.

12.06.2008: spun out on sugar. too many sweets. too much curry spice. and that prick nicholas cage. through all hours of the night. and then staring at a patch of blue sky through a single window pane, before it pours down and i almost stay in bed all day. and our duvet, as white and pink and flowery and girly as it is, it doesn't half look like a dune sand worm when clumped together wrongly.

so it looks like i'll be in england soon for a couple of weekends. maybe from june 21st to july 8th, but maybe not. i don't know yet. it was trying to coincide it with a trip to the netherlands (for a wedding party), but that's too difficult. anyway, i'd love to see you. really. let me know what you're doing. please.

and go the fuck vote for grilly. and buy my house.

shit, how did it get to the 12th already? all that backgammon, that's how. and myer down the local.

i have theories why i don't have anything to say anymore. but i can't tell you them. them neither.

09.06.2008: just to let you know that i'm back in copenhagen. and have a lot of photographs. and washing to do.

and for the sake of mentioning it, because i can, this is my 400th post since switching to aspx and xml, since september 15th 2006. that's 633 days ago, so i post about 4.4 days a week, or two out of every three days. it's actually more than that, if you include my holiday journals, but that would be too complicated (and pointless) to calculate. does anyone want to work out my average words per day?

actually, it's about 100. excluding holidays. which doesn't seem much. but you know, how dull am i anyway?

03.06.2008: we have so little night to spare. looking outside you'd think it's about 8pm, when really it's almost eleven. it's not proper dark until midnight, and then it's starting to get light again at 3am. it makes the days almost abstract, especially when friends get in from the night before at 2pm. there is no such thing as breakfast. i say we head further north and forget time completely. we need never grow old.

or grow up, maybe, is what i meant. speaking of which:

i stopped short of fetching the ketchup from the kitchen. although i don't really know why.

so tomorrow me and julie are (actually) heading up to skagen, which is at the most northern tip of jutland (and denmark). see, i am not all talk. we'll be back around the weekend or something, whenever that is.

and before i forget, the critical mass in toronto managed to "shut down" the gardiner expressway (shut down? not so likely). don't read those articles too carefully either, critical mass participants are referred to as cattle and it's claimed the ride was "organized". the comments are worse - "i also think the leaders of the critical mass ride should have been arrested". comprehension approaches zero. we live in different worlds. i miss the city, and it sucks we missed what was obviously such a fun ride, but i don't miss how backward the general populace is.

"the collective consciousness of critical mass rose our industrial town out of the muck, albeit for a few brief minutes". thanks to shamez for being the voice of reason and a beacon of hope in a sea of bullshit. "for those of you out there with kids who are upset about the young ones out on this ride, tell them you couldn't be bothered to try and make their world a better place. get in your car or on your bike and go to work so you can pay for their asthma breather, or casket, as they are far more likely to die from the status quo than from civic engagement."

02.06.2008: i've been trying to write every day, but every day something has interrupted me. now i'm left with half written sentences and forgotten ideas. like "when you start getting confused by mirrors it's probably time to go to bed". that sentence was never going to fly.

friday was the sustainability fair, whatever the official title was. it was organised by the fair trade place emil and julie work at, mainly a bunch of stalls selling various 'righteous' products. i helped out a little, but mostly just sat in the cafe reading my book, then when i finished that out on the pavement talking to various people about various things. like people setting fire to their face and not taking responsibility for their own reckless behaviour, idiots. it's a cool place, but they are kind of christian, and also have written everywhere "spend your money safe the world". and they were selling meat at a fair about sustainability, which i couldn't quite understand. but nevermind, they're nice enough for sure.

maybe it was that night i went out to isola. or was it the previous night? either way i woke up with a sock on my face and some tasteless memories. excluding the one asshole thing i said (which is still bothering me), and that i ditched the half bottle of wine at the metro station on the way back, it was a great night. i chatted to an old friend who was presumed missing (in netto, of all places) and met a cool couple, one of whom used to live in brighton. numerous other people, but who mostly just got in the way of the conversations i was trying to have. and jokes about flaming absinthes and floors of lava, setting your face on fire, etc. we didn't make it home before sunrise, but that's ok. if it hadn't of been light we'd never have found the sim card from the phone that had smashed so unsatisfactorily on the bike lane several metres ahead of us. phweeee.. crash.

then i spent a day barefoot, reading down by the lake (mother night) and buying crisps and bread for crisp sandwiches. it was liberating (skin on tarmac, not eating sandwiches), except i had to spend half an hour in the shower digging something out of my foot. i didn't even get to find out what it was.

and we watched some films. donnie darco and the texas chainsaw massacre (now there's a film i'd watch). that latter of which was quite ridiculous but occasionally beautiful. the filming i mean. tobe hooper really knew how to shoot. and it makes it quite obvious how our standards and tolerance have changed dramatically. after so much hype it was really quite tame. but anyway.

i remember this morning julie coming in, 8am or something, and asking me if i was awake, paying attention and all that. she did it twice before telling me something important. i wish i could remember what it was.

yesterday was all about the beach. my first time there this year. magic. and of course we were out there too long. after dinner, stir fry with a nice amount of chilli, my lips were tingling the same as the back of my calves. and something about balancing a knife on my finger, but i can't remember what. so nevermind. the beach is still brilliant, despite my favourite jette disappearing. i could still happily spend half my life there. it's worth getting a little sunburnt for (of course, next time i'll be properly prepared).

tonight we must really eat the brie.

but, these ones go up to jesus..

29.05.2008: i woke up feeling like someone had just injected coffee straight up my ass. that, or one of the tightly wrapped bags of cocaine had popped in my stomach. then when i got into the shower it felt like i was already clean. it was weird. it must be a lack of sleep thing. i was going to nap, but i have band practice in less than two hours. and i need to buy gravy.

really, i wasn't up all night playing warcraft2 with emil (who's fresh back from playing at being anne frank). of course i wasn't, that would just be ridiculous. fucking insane.

and the two hours of dumpster diving?

like when you cross over the bridge to see all of the tiny distant red lights turn to green in unison. all the way along christianshavn. of course when you get to them they'll all be red, but that's beside the point. (what point?)

tales of the mammoth:

he had it coming.

26.05.2008: the bed is the most beautiful and comfortable of prisons, without a doubt the worst kind. this morning i could just lay here forever listening to the crackle and rustle of the rain. the distant rumble and splash of the traffic. the even more distant wail of the occasional siren. splish, plop, gurgle. although i think that last sound is actually the shower. why get up when i'm surrounded by water, and i can enjoy it right here without getting wet?

part of me hopes it'll rain all day, except for a ten minute gap when i can run to the library and pick up my book (spook country). this is partly so i can be lazy and not leave the house, cuddle up with the new quilt and read my book and not feel bad about staying in, but also because everything needs a lot of water. out there. also there's work that needs doing. internet stuff.

four hours later the coffee has turned to thick black tar. and it's still raining, the world in wet shades of grey.

we need peas and spinach and rice. i need to not fall asleep on the couch whilst reading.

although on a day like today..

and another four hours later, when it finally stops raining, there's still the hiss of the boiling kettle and the babble of the tv.

sony got back to me. the price of a rubber foot is about $32. lol.

25.05.2008: three hours earlier i was in netto getting excited at how busy it was. clearly all these people were buying last minute supplies for their various eurovision parties. the country has gone melodi grand prix crazy. but then i realised it wasn't so. it's always this busy. and i was all alone in my eurovision excitement. shame, really.

we had a small three person party, no projector or fancy sound system. but it was good. my personal favourite was bosnia and herzegovina, for all the right reasons. batshit crazy (what happened to the chicken?). spain clearly should have won. and kudos to georgia for having a blind singer (although getting her to pose with a camera seems a bit odd)

the real highlight came courtesy of sweden. not their entry (fucking awful), but their representative trying to announce the swedish votes through an apparent haze of green smoke. shame he was only acting, but nevermind. "you can't vote on your own", no.

as well as being sad, we've also been creating a community herb garden in our courtyard.

due to a money mixup we've started with five pots (we'd planned eight) and included oregano, rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage, chives and mint. if it goes well and people actually use it then we'll scale it up a little. you'd think people would, but round here they're a bit weird. they don't seem to understand the idea of a 'community', and hardly anyone even uses the courtyard, whilst at the same time insisting on all these stupid rules about what you can and can't do in it. the intention is subversion. and the herb garden is the first phase. it's worth noting that the only reason we can get away with this is because julie's now in charge.

btw, this guy is my new temporary favourite author. i just read decimal0.4 and can confirm he's a genius. i'd tell you to check it out, but the chance of you being able to get it outside scandinavia are slim (not to mention expensive). plus it's in danish, but then you probably don't need the words to follow the story anyway. bah blah etc.

23.05.2008: down by the lake it smells malty and delicious. that's the best moment.

the worst is at 4am, hunched up against the toilet with vomit coming out of your nose. after laying there cramped and waiting for fifteen minutes it should be a relief, but it's not, it's just pink and tastes like blue cheese. smells like that last pint (the one you didn't ask for and barely drank). lost in the mix is the fernet branca with a twist of lime. the pink will probably be the cranberry juice.

now my mouth tastes metallic. like tongueing the end of a 9volt battery.

"nothing's wrong, but if it was it'd be complicated"

which reminds me, this is just ridiculous:

*** NOTES 22-May-2008 Action Type: Info
I realise I have a non-European model, which makes it complicated, but surely the rubber feet are identical on all models?

Dear Mr. Ashmore,

Thank you for your response.

Unfortunately we are unable to do this. The reason being that each VAIO has a bill of materials, or a list of spare parts. We are unable to supply parts for the VAIO that are not on this list. Therefore, we must source the exact part before we can supply it. We thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Kind regards,
Sony Vaio-Link Team

so, does anyone have a european CR series VAIO and can do me a favour?

but band practice was good. i can even play a few songs without wearing my glasses. that's the trick, i need to follow the music, not jolle's fingers. i'm getting used to their slightly strange style and odd tunings.

and all day today we have no power. no clocks, no oven, no light in the bathroom and no hot water. just a thawing freezer full of bread and soup. but it's what i asked for, i distinctly remember saying we should have no power at least one day a week. the world would be better for it. people would come down from their apartments and play together in the courtyard. we'd have salad and wine, boardgames. there would be book readings and tacky performance art. but outside all day there's been nothing. how very disappointing. and it's been an hour since the power was supposed to be back on. we're getting hungry and i'd hate to have to go and order pizza. no really.

22.05.2008: this is more for martin than anyone else:

"Democracy is the most sustainable way to maintain the distinction between powerful and powerless because it gives the greatest possible number of people incentive to defend that distinction."

or to elaborate a little:

When it comes down to it, does anyone really believe it makes sense to accept the authority of a group simply on the grounds that they outnumber everyone else? We accept majority rule because we do not believe it will threaten us - and those it does threaten are already silenced before anyone can hear their misgivings.

The average self-professed law-abiding citizen does not consider himself threatened by majority rule because, consciously or not, he conceives of himself as having the power and moral authority of the majority: if not in fact, by virtue of his being politically and socially "moderate", then in theroy, because he believes everyone would be convinced by his arguments if only he had the opportunity to present them. Majority-rule democracy has always rested on the conviction that if all the facts were known, everyone could be made to see that there is only one right course of action - without this belief, it amounts to nothing more than the dictatorship of the herd. But even if "the" facts could be made equally clear to everyone, assuming such a thing were possible, people still would have their individual perspectives and motivations and needs. We need a social and political structures that take this into account, in which we are free from the mob rule of the majority as well as the ascendancy of the privileged class.

Living under democratic rule teaches people to think in terms of quantity, to focus more on public opinion than on what their consciences tell them, to see themselves as powerless unless they are immersed in a mass. The root of majority-rule democracy is competition: competition to persuade everyone else to your position whether or not it is in their best interest, competition to constitute a majority to wield power before others outmaneuver you to do the same - and the losers (that is to say, the minorities) be damned (the disempowerment of losers and out-groups is central to democracy, in contrast to forms of decision-making in which everyone's needs matter). At the same time, majority rule foves those who wish for power to appeal to the lowest common denominator, precipitating a race to the bottom that rewards the most bland, superficial, and demagogic; under democracy, power itself becomes to be associated with conformity rather than individuality. And the more power is concentrated in the hands of the majority, the less any individual can do on her own, whether she is inside or outside that majority.

In purporting to give everyone an oppurtunity to participate, majority-rule democracy offers a perfect justification for repressing those who don't abide by its dictates: if they don't like the government, why don't they go into politics themselves? And if they don't win at that game of building up a majority to wield power, didn't they get their chance? This is the same blame-the-victim reasoning used to justify capitalism: if the dishwasher isn't happy with his salary, he should work harder so he too can own a restaurant chain. Sure, everyone gets a chance to compete, however unequal - but what about those of us who don't want to compete, who never wanted power to be centralized in the hands of a government in the first place? What if we don't care to rule or be ruled?

Real freedom has nothing to do with voting; being free doesn't mean simply being able to choose between options, but actively participating in establishing the options in the first place.

Voting in elections is an expression of our powerlessness: it is an admission that we can only approach the resources and capabilities of our own society through the mediation of politicians.

if you want to read more, please do.

and it's funny, because the system that tells us we should vote is the same one that bases everything on economics, which tells us not to vote.

21.05.2008: you can trace my hate of sport and exercise back to school. at least, that's what i want to blame it on - a terrible physical education curriculum (if you could even call it that) and an asshole of a teacher. not to mention the asshole kids. the way i remember it, games lesson rewarded the strong and punished the weak. there was no encouragement if you sucked, and if you had no friends it was even worse. it had a polarising effect, which (based on the competitive nature of the 'lessons') is the only possible outcome, and which can only have been the intention all along.

you can't measure my resentment for my gym/maths teacher.

what's worse, it's the time when physical exercise is most important, when you're developing quickly and you're setting a precedence for the rest of your life. that hate is about to become ingrained.

so that's what i'm dealing with now. i've noticed i go through phases of exercising, when i'm home during the summer and get a gym membership, or when i'm training to climb a big fucking mountain. could i include when i started cycling to work? but right now i just have nothing better to do. or more reasonably, i'm now doing what i wished i'd done last time i lived here - run around the lake every day. and i'm keeping it up. i'm now running about 3km about six days a week.

this doesn't dissipate my hate of sport, but it does help seperate the competitive aspects from simple exercise. or at least change the competition, focusing it inwards. now i'm just talking gash. forget it.

bulgar wheat, on the hand, is becoming one of my new favourite things. that shit is tasty. in your face rice.

20.05.2008: i've not really been up to much. little things. inconsequentials.

if you're interested, our brand new dumpster diving guide is up. that's been eating up a lot of my time. it has a nice graphic at the top. and lots of words.

my keyboard just switched again, right as i pasted that URL. i got a double quote, ctrl+v, then a @. wtf? gr.

in desperation, i'm dragging up a bunch of random paragraphs that i wrote long ago but never published, probably all for good reasons. but nevermind, i hate having things hanging around like that, and i don't like deleting stuff either. so make what you won't out of these:

and then congress want to ban "chat rooms" and "social networking sites" from schools and libraries. social network sites? there's a fuzzy definition if i've ever heard one, better ban the whole internet to make sure. i hate myspace as much as the next person, but they can stick this one up their whichever holes they've got left. anyway, can't schools control this themselves? i mean, if it could actually be controlled. kids are smart these days y'know, it doesn't take much effort to use proxy servers or even (gulp) the google cache. or any of those hundred of sites that will pop up enabling you to do exactly what they don't want you to. it kind of reminds me of when kids in my school started selling porn mags. the kids will rise up and crush you, even if it takes them twenty years. you'll notice i couldn't actually be bothered to make a sensible statement about this, it didn't deserve it, so nevermind.

its not until you lose everything that you are free to do anything. and it doesn't matter how far you fall. the worst situation you can get yourself into may actually facilitate your best life experiences, and what more do you want? your little pleasures are nothing but fallacies. you shit out your posh meal and your expensive perfume evaporates in the breeze. your status will decompose with your corpse. your comfort is nothing but an embaressment when contrasted with those born into worse circumstances.

i could have sworn i saw a hotdog stall stand up and walk off down the road

i often take my camera with me into my dreams. last night i was back at school again, just finishing up for the day, taking photos of the huge projections in the sky. trying to get whoever i was with to pose on the bridge below of it before the picture changed. in my dreams the colours are beautiful. and then i'm walking with ben or martin up to brownsover. and i'm remembering what it used to be like when i used to do this, getting sentimental in my dream, although these memories are no more real than the rest of the dream. one time it's night and half of the buildings are on fire and there's a dog on the loose. another time we're just wandering around the streets and going to the corner shop, except it looks nothing like brownsover. in the now of the dream, along the side of the road a circus has set itself up and is about to begin. a group of bright and decadently dressed harlequins are playing infront of the gigantic moon that's hovering on the horizon, it's the perfect photograph until the projection changes and i realise it wasn't the real moon. i wander over to get a drink from their cafe, none of the people working there know anything about the projection, but that's okay. i take their photos anyway.

blah blah blah

catwoman is one of the worst films i've ever seen. i wish it was still one of the worst films i've not seen. seriously, it's so bad i can't believe it got made. actually, why am i even bothering to mention. i guess it's just incase you get the same though i got, "oh catwoman is on tv, i may aswell watch it". no.

17.05.2008: on the train back from riba i'd torn out an article from a random newspaper about sally mann. i was meaning to ask someone to translate it but forgot. then a few days later we organised a trip over to the black diamond (national library, just across the canal, you know the one) with a friend of emil's to see the new photography exhibit there, which was of course sally mann. i just love these little coincidences, not really coincidences at all. only once i was down there did i make the connection and realise who it was. also, any confusion as to the nature of the exhibit also disappeared, it was both the woman who photographed naked children and the woman who photographed the dead people (that sentence needs a "[sic]"). she's also brilliant. throw your camera away.

what happened was we weren't initially allowed down there, this due to visiting famous and important people (this sentence also needs a "[sic]"), and none other than the statsminister himself mr. anders fogh. there he was in full suited up boring glory, and me with nothing amusing to shout or throw, stupid without a plan of escape anyway, but nevermind. he was visiting the exhibition of prime minister caricatures, including himself as a caveman. picture him standing beside himself with a huge jaw and a giant fucking club, like an absolute idiot. the one that he is. but anyway.

what annoys me though, and this is no reason to be concerned or blah blah blah, this is just what denmark is like, is that on returning from riba i'd decided to avoid drinking alcohol for a while, but for various reasons i've managed to drink at least one beer every day since. excluding last night. but anyway, no big deal.

what actually annoyed me was the guy in floss who said he was disappointed when he saw 'cult of luna', that they were skinny young swedish guys dressed in white suits when they should be big and old. presumably hairy. that because they were young it meant they were just ripping off whatever other band, but by that point i'd stopped listening to him name dropping band after band. stoner metal, blah blah blah. if i remember correctly it wasn't even a conversation he was a part of. it did give us a song title though - "hunt the mammoth".

why do the " the and @ keys keep switching around? it's something to do with firefox. something to do with being fucking annoying.

and it's norway day, so get off my lawn.

14.05.2008: we decided to cook frittata for dinner, so i was twenty minutes late for band practice. because of this i missed the woman jump from the top of the round tower. twenty minutes earlier and i might have seen her hit the hard concrete, warmed by the afternoon sun, and seen the terror in the eyes of the group of school children who weren't as fortunate as me in their timing. i'd have seen the firemen come and wash away her stain from the pavement. her imprint pushed into the gutter.

thoughtless and inconsiderate suicide is despicable. but then, maybe she wanted to make a point. we'll never know. she sure went to a lot of effort though, the round tower has a double fence to stop such things from happening.

it was a good band practice though. i learnt a couple of songs. and i'm in a band again. a couple of hours later we had a liquid lunch and got talking about five dimensional aliens and holographic universe theory. as is to be expected.

some homemade baba ganoush later and all i can taste, smell or feel is garlic. the first rule of cooking with laurence is you halve the sugar and double the garlic. i'm not always the best person to cook with. and don't forget, there is only one "i" in kitchen.

i'm still not sure how i manged to get cuts on the back of my hand and wrist from playing bass though.

13.05.2008: i'm not sure i can disquise this blatant boasting as something interesting, so i wont bother. check me out, making it to the top link on reddit with this. it got 230 points and 147 comments and it wasn't even me who posted it (as a supposed SEO i guess it should have been). so yeah, the old polar bear eating a horses head again. only now the photo's been viewed 67,600 times and there's 151 comments, whereas before there was only 50 (you can't read them all unfortunately, because i refuse to give money to a company who supports censorship). but isn't that a blast? there's a link to my site on the page and i had a small increase in traffic here, but only about 300 (what's that? a clickthrough rate of about 0.5%)

well, i thought it was kind of interesting. i got annoyed though, because nearly everyone who posted 'supportive' comments (for want of a better word) completely missed the point. not having double standards about eating meat doesn't make it ok. and there's nothing "natural" about a polar bear eating a horse, like there's nothing "natural" about zoos.

and no one seems to think it's interesting that if you shat out a fake turd, would it still be a fake turd or would it be a real one?

12.05.2008: i was genuinely surprised when i woke up and it was dark outside. such has been the last few days, i've not slept through any of the night, but not that i can remember it all that well.

saturday started nice and slow. at about 3pm we cycled into town (stopping for a tyrkisk peber icecream, weirdest shit i ever ate) to join a birthday party picnic. and once again i'm surrounded by teachers. we played croquet ("crocket") and ordered massive amounts of pizza. as is typical there was a mixup with the vegetarian pizza (chicken is a vegetable) and we had to order another, but this was no problem. although i was a bit jealous of the spaghetti pizza, but at the same time also a bit disturbed.

also at the party was the (to be) legendary silver spoon guy. over the week i have heard many stories about this guy, but the stand out one goes like this. him and his girlfriend (for whose birthday he bought a crib) received some tax back from the government and sensibly decided to spend it on something useful for themselves, something for the house or a holiday, etc, something like that. only a couple of days later he comes home with a set of silver spoons, about $1200 worth. maybe you need more context to find it funny, but everytime i think about it i crack up. even in really inappropriate situations.

the volume on the stereo slowly increased through the day and at some point the sun began to set. the temperature dropped. i was drinking slowly and swinging through emotions. hi ad some really interesting conversations, played some acoustic guitar (apparently i was the only person who could play, and i can't really play anything), learnt a bob dylan song (that was difficult) but refused the oasis greenday song. someone got enthusiastic about my vegetarian trainers. and then i found out the drunk guy we saved yesterday wasn't the dwarf guy at all. but nevermind, the story has been written.

at somepoint we picked up and headed into town in search of nice coffee. the lovely place where alex's mum works was closed, but we managed to get coffee (on the house) from an equally lovely place where alex used to work. the woman also gave me a humongous cookie. we then had the problem of getting drunk, which is always tricky after you've already spent most of the day drinking. a basement bar offered us fernet branca and nice beer. then this proper redneck came in, dirty yellow baseball cap and missing teeth and all, the full getup, and he had two dogs with him. people were eating. and that's when i discovered the girl we were with was the girl who does the incredible dog barks. she copied every bark those damn dogs did and no one even noticed or cared. it found it so funny it hurt, and the redneck had the audacity to think it was at his dogs i was laughing.

then we went back to the horrible bar from the night before. it was early yet and the band was bareable. i was still seething from seeing girls walk down the street drinking cult shaker. and the woman opposite me at the bar was too. just disgusting. later that night i actually found a discarded bottle of that shit and can confirm it's vile. tastes like redbull and vodka, despite it being made with cider because vodka is taxed higher. anyway, there was more fernet branca (heh, also vile but at least it's made from herbs and spices, and it's growing on me) and more beers. by this time we'd ran out of money. but the beers kept coming anyway. it's disgusting how much beer is wasted at festivals.

so we moved back into the fresh air, got talking to a guy about ungdomshuset and he called his startlingly good looking friend over with "hey, this guy is an ungern". which is not entirely true, but cool none the less. later on, the good looking guy admitted he learnt english playing warcraft, which is a bit weird when he could be out having sex with anyone he wanted.

then to another bar, horribly busy, but we made it out into the back garden where you could breathe and see the canal and all the stars beyond. bang. and then the sky begins to lighten, a light blue band appearing on the horizon, and i find a beach. for a minute it all went a bit surreal, but then we're back inside and people are being slowly thrown out. by the time we're ejected from the pub it's proper daylight and i meet a guy with the longest plaited beard i've ever seen. vikings.

with no money and no food but a raging hunger we had no choice but to go dumpster diving, broad daylight. and so we cycled all the way home eating bread.

i had about four hours before having to get up and eat breakfast. me and alex have been rocking the fried egg sandwiches. then her dad drove me to another town, as there was a rail strike on, to catch the train back to copenhagen. friendliest people. from madagascar i believe.

and that's why i've not been emailing you or writing anything. now you know.

10.05.2008: our bikes finally rolled back onto the gravel driveway somewhere around 5am. we'd rode home with the distant slow rising sun, making our lack of bike lights somewhat immaterial (but argue that to a copper). our baskets were full of buns and apples, all reclaimed from behind netto, and hurling that apple core into the air along the road infront of my wheels felt like a true victory. i can tell this story, but only if i work it backwards.

at 4am the town was still teeming with people, all drunk and ugly and a mess. the queue at 'subs n burgers' was about as grotesque as i imagined there food would be, but (as demonstrated) no one really cared about that. neither the food nor queue. the place just around the corner was empty in comparison, except the dude behind the counter refused to make us a vegetarian pizza. at the time i was less sympathetic, too hungry to imagine the horrible night he must have had, but we settled for falafels, and this time they actually came with falafel in (as opposed to in germany where they didn't). and they were good too.

before this we'd been sitting on a bench waiting for alex. i'm not sure why we'd left the bar we were in, except it was horrible and vile and everyone was singing along and dancing to 'sweet child of mine'. needless the say the band did not make a good impression on me. from what i can remember i spent the entire time in there discussing trip hop and the quality of beth gibbons. we'd been in there for too many songs and i'd barely drunk an inch of my pint, by this point i knew i didn't need more alcohol. and to think the door man, skinny and old compared to the guys i'd seen throwing drunk kids around earlier, wouldn't let me in because i didn't have ID. he was either distracted or gave up caring (he knew he was being an ass) because i was pulled past him into that smelly mass of people.

it was a bit like the opposite of the bends (the syndrome and the album, why not). up to this point we'd been outside, sitting on all those cobblestones amongst the chaos, some wild eyed girl babbling at me with a strange acquired english accent about lemington spa and me trying to ignore her and her evident craziness. and then escaping to find a toilet. actually, maybe the bouncer hadn't wanted to let me in because he'd seen me pissing up the back of his bar. we'd bought pints from a street bar and it felt right. people should be in the street partying like this always.

except just before we'd been given the job of looking after some sailor kid who'd had way too much drink. he was at the scary point where he hadn't passed out but probably should have an hour ago. he was vaguely concious and had little to no motor control. we called his parents and his dad came to pick him up, all smiles. maybe he'd have been better off with an ambulance, which is what he'd have had in england. i just kept drinking my beer, grateful that i'd met the dwarf guy, if that's what you can call meeting. it's a shame he was in no state to tell the story himself, which is necessary because i find it slightly hard to believe, this almost mythical brothel in germany where the perversions increase with the floor numbers and inhabiting the top floor are black dwarves dressed in velcro which you bounce of trampolines and stick to the wall before fucking.

at least if you're a black dwarf you can always find employment.

the first bar we'd attempted to get into was charging silly prices, and we were in no mood for that. besides, there were plenty of people we knew outside. i met one guy who had an anarcha primitivism star tattooed on his right hand, it confused me because he was wearing an expensive pair of trainers and all white clothes. at least he actually knew what it meant, and i felt bad for judging him, if only slightly. being drunk does that, and although this was the first bar, we were already many beers into the night.

we'd met up at someone's apartment, a small room with a very high ceiling in what used to be a mental hospital. due to a slightly strange situation we spent most of the time there listening to bob dylan. and then two yeah yeah yeahs albums. that gives you a time scale. originally we were drinking mimosas, and then beers when the champagne ran out, punctuated with shots of galliano, coffee and cream. who knew there was a drink better than baileys coffee? and there was a funny story about silver spoons, but i'll save that for another day.

the night had many revelations, but for me it was learning that not only i could make squealing noises by blowing a reed between my thumb (i knew the trick, just never pulled it off before), but i could also do it using various leaves. i learnt a new instrument. and that's really worth something.

09.05.2008: the tulip festival has begun. from what i understand this is all about drinking. but we'll see. the days keep getting better and better. i'm beginning to worry the sun will wear itself out and we'll be ruined for the rest of summer. is it even supposed to be summer yet?

earlier we cycled down to the beach, which isn't really a beach at all. it's mostly mud, and flat for miles, all the way out to the island (there's a tractor bus but it's expensive and infrequent). you can try to walk it but since it's so flat the tide comes in very quickly. the water was warm and full of so many crabs. off in the distance a couple of men were digging in the mud for worms. and the patterns in the water just hypnotize.

as well as lounging around on the vast expanse of lawn, reading and etc, i've been playing a lot of kubb, a swedish game involving lots of batton throwing and lots of wooden blocks. we're getting slowly better at it, after being repeatedly beaten 5-0 by the norwegians who were staying here (having left, the pepsi max consumption has gone down by several litres a day). we decided we'd be better at it if we replaced the blocks with policemen and hurled rocks and bottles instead. the king can be replaced by bjaern. then we can kick some ass. er, anyway.

there's that fantastic tree.

09.05.2008: everywhere in this house there is chocolate. there is a seemingly endless supply. and there are also flies. and from the end of the driveway there's alway a cow staring back at you. right now there's a big fat bull. i can hear sheep and countless birds. there are ants crawling over my feet. weather like this, with the butterflies dancing through the falling cherry blossom, it's hard to imagine that the snow i used to deal with on a daily basis actually existed at all.

the last two nights have been spent in town, sitting in a cosy little bar upstairs and playing backgammon. windows open and the warm summer night's air desperately competing with the cigarette smoke (everyone here smokes). outside you can see the night watchman, all dressed up and with a big stick, wandering the town telling stories to the paying tourists. it's the kind of town where everyone knows everyone. that'd be nice wouldn't it? we met with various friends, coming and going, and they were all awesome. one of them repeatedly beat me at backgammon, which was bound to happen eventually (it's statistics etc). and we had to leave early because the parents were picking us up to take us home, like we were sixteen again. quite strange.

this green spider keeps crawling all over me. we meet again, finally. when i was younger we were in malvern up that big hill and i saw a green spider and no one believed me. or that's how i remember it at least.

so yesterday we drove into flensburg, a town or small city in north germany not far from the danish border. i have a weird relationship with germany in that unlike all other countries i've been to i've only visited its towns, no major cities. i've also only been in the most northern parts of germany. flensburg is many churches and a rather nice touristy harbour.

it also has what's probably the quaintest redlight district in the world:

the only clues are a large number of trainers slung over a wire crossing the main street just before the turning (and new looking shoes too, maybe the shoes of customers leaving in a hurry? surely not gang killings) and red flourescent tubes in the windows of several houses along the street itself. none were switched on but they were quite visible.

just up the road from we found an infoshop that only opens once a month. as i was contemplating quite how ridiculous that is someone came along and opened the shop. we were very lucky. i bought a book called 'the fall of america', a kind of autobiographical fictional novel (i'm guessing) whose cover is made from a cereal packet. too punk not to buy. it's ok if not a bit forced, from train hopping to dumpster diving to critical mass to etc. ranting dialogues that should never have progressed past monologues. i dis, but i do like it.

i also got my first proper marker. it's fat and sexy and shall get me into trouble. alex's younger brother has been teaching me the more technical aspects of graffiti, the stuff you don't learn from buying banksy books, so now i can be a more convincing poseur. go on, just ask me about fat caps and skinny caps and the density of paint spray. also why people use that terribly ugly silver paint.

i guess i didn't learn much abour flensburg, what with not having our own personal guide, but it was fun just walking around and eating kinder icecream. we also stocked up on alcohol for the coming festivities, six crates of beer and various bottles of liquor. i couldn't resist buying a small bullet shaped bottle of elkschnaps - for "after hunting, with a beer or when the longing gets too strong". seriously, what is wrong with people? actually, the best thing about that supermarket (in germany but with danish prices) was that you could try the wine, self-service.

on the drive back to ribe we passed a truck that had driven off the road and fallen into the ditch, pitched over at a nasty angle. it's not that interesting but you don't see stuff like that every day. the driver was probably trying to overtake a tractor or something stupid. we had so many of them on the drive down, one asshole even pulled out infront of us and continued to drive at 30km/h.

someone called me sebastian.

08.05.2008: i dreamt i was visiting alex's parents house in riba and we both had to sleep in the living room. when i woke up, in the dream that is, she was already awake and reading kafka's 'the trial'. funny that. when i woke up for real it was to the sound of rain, actually a boiling kettle (and not the pond fountain in the back garden that i'd presumed it must be when i opened my eyes and saw nothing but glorious sunshine and a japanese cherry tree in full bloom dripping in through the window), and i'm surrouned by so many pieces of art. sculptures and paintings. a pair of impossibly delicate clay hands. a mask teetering on the edge of a window ledge. armless headless manequins decorated in homemade costumes. a slender pink leg pointing towards the sky.

so i'm actually in riba, being mildly spontaneous and finally making it to jutland - the big island, which seems to have a reputation for being a bit backwards. people who live in the eastern islands talk about jutlanders like we talk about the welsh. it's probably a universal phenomena.

riba is the oldest town in denmark, and used to be the capital city (copenhagen became the capital in 1417) thankfully, and probably due in large part to a mass of undoubtably horribly beauracratic rules, it's been remarkably well kept. you will find no starbucks or mcdonalds here. to me it seems like a completely different country all together, with its hints of french and dutch countryside. but then what would i know about the danish countryside?

we'd cycled into town and it was almost perfect, all we were lacking was a beatbox and the amelie soundtrack. just fields of rapeseed and nothing beyond but flat endless green. maybe a small windfarm in the distance or the promise of the sea. no cars and plenty of sunshine, enough at least for mild sunburn. just us and a huge expanse of flood plain.

the focal point of the town is the cathedral, which was actually the second church to be built here, or something. it's kind of funny looking because it was built over many centuries and incorporated every change in architectural style. it has three steeples/spires, each very different, and one giving a great view of the surrounding town, which is tiny considering it could have grown to the size and shape of copenhagen by now. history is a strange thing.

there also used to be a castle here, but all that remains now is the mound and the moat and a series of drawings of how people suspect it might have looked. there are no actual records. the bricks are still here though, they were used in various buildings and salvaged to help rebuilt a part of the church that was destroyed by the germans. part of me wishes (the part that enjoys too much pseudoscience) that it must be possible to reconstruct the whole castle based on signatures ingrained in each brick as if each brick had a residual memory of the bricks that used to surround it. the idea makes up for its lack of plausibility with its epic grandeur.

there's gurgling fountains and huge water wheels (i wonder what they turn, since the building is no longer a mill). the canal that leads into the city, winding in from the sea and once upon a time bringing all the trade, splits into three and weaves all throughout the town. everyone gets a piece of river bank. and everyone says it's a beautiful place, but not to live here. that i can understand, but for right now it's just awesome.

05.05.2008: reasons for my jetlag are many, and they got me wondering why there's never discussion of it in time travel literature. it must be a nightmare for the irregular traveller. unless you offset your physical jump with a temporal jump, there's an idea. but then that's something that's never discussed either, if i go back in time an hour i'll be dropped 67000 miles behind the earth. and that's only relative to the sun, which makes no sense either. i guess relativity messes it up so much it's just not worth talking about.

anyway, not to get distracted. after the shenanigans of mayday we were up nice and early to drive to fyn (we could have just gone forward in time five minutes, relative to the centre of the earth of course), which is the next island along after sjaelland (where we live, for the non-danish among you). we had been invited to a family party and everything that goes along with it. turn out it's a gorgeous place.

we ate and we walked and we ate again and we walked again. then we played trivial pursuit and poker late into the night. the morning came much too quickly, which is not what i wanted since i was to start work 16 hours later, but it felt good washing in an unknown shower.

and that explains a lot.

i often have this dream where i'm drinking endless bottles of water. my mouth is parched, it's like sand paper, and my throat is a cardboard tube. but nothing helps, the water goes straight down without touching the sides. it's horrible, but it's kind of how i feel right now.

04.05.2008: the city of 6am differs drastically depending on your frame of reference. if you're the person on their way to work, for whom this is a brand new day, the couple lying together on the hard marble of the main shopping street are nothing but reckless drunks. you empathise with the street cleaners, who just ignore them like they'd suck them up into their vacuums if only they could. but if you're the person on their way home, the one who has survived the night, the couple are entwined in joy. in beautiful and reckless celebration of the new and glorious morning. it's a great moment, both beginning and end collapsed as one.

and then i go and crash my bike into a trash can, too busy trying to avoid greenlanders and looking around to make sure there are no cars. this is why coaster brakes are dangerous, because when your feet are in the wrong position all you can do is accelerate before braking. but no bones broken.

i'd spent the night at studenterhuset, earning myself a membership card that will bring me free coffee and a reduction in drink prices. and i figured some bar experience would do me good. i was even looking forward to it, right up until i saw the throng of people smoking outside. dread rising. the student house has never been so busy, the bar was rammed and i had no idea what i was doing. since it was so crazy the guy who was training me could only afford to give me a five minute crash course. it was going to be misery until 5am. luckily the manager had mercy and gave us the much easier job of manning the cloak room. so for four we ran back and forth, stashing and retrieving coats and bags. free beer and cake and numbers, what could be more fun?

i guess it'd be less fun if we sticked to the rules (dealing with people who have lost their ticket, have a missing scarf, want to put way too many items on one peg, etc), but what do you expect for free labour? although we probably shouldn't have let people climb up the scaffolding and come through the window, dodging the rather excessive 60kr entrance fee, but nevermind. hus forbi, etc. the scaffolding was cool anyway, because it meant i got to piss on the roof whilst watching the sun rise. i also could have used it to make my escape to avoid helping with the cleaning up, not because i'm lazy but because of the obligatory extra shot and pint. honestly, as if people collecting their coats hadn't left us enough beer already. and even some tips.

at some point i got yoghurt all down the back and sides of my trousers. then i got caught playing the piano i didn't even know they had, but the manager just laughed and told me to continue. needless to say i didn't take part in the keg lifting competition.

a million other stories i tried my hardest not to forget.

i got myself virtual jetlag. occupational haphazard.

02.05.2008: it's brightened up now, but i think we've had the worst may day weather in the last 122 years. which is just what i didn't need, but nevermind that. the march continues.

i think most people worry more about the rain watering down their beer than making them wet. although i imagine rain makes paintbombing and graffiting harder. but that was at a minimal, with a new ungdomshuset somewhere on the horizon everyone was being very well behaved. securing a new building is more important than making mayday a threat to the system.

atari teenage riot across the bridge and pulling danish flags from their poles. we even get a ticker tape parade courtesy of people in top floor apartments along the route.

and why is it that all the people dressed up for a black bloc (although not actually having any kind of coherence, just running around on their own looking badass and graffiting walls etc, and they're easy to spot because covering your face is illegal and no one else is doing it) wear northface jackets? i just thought it was a bit weird. i mean, aren't they rather expensive and not particularly expendable?

now i have 'pretty green' in my head.

we left when the march arrived at the park, as it joined all the other demonstrations and everyone got down to the dirty business of getting drunk (really this had started hours earlier, it's great to be back in a country where it's not illegal to drink in the street). we had to pick up louise from the station and i had to sleep. after a couple of hours we took off back into the city, vaguely heading back to the park, but it began to rain again as soon as we got there. we sat under a bus shelter for a couple of beers and waited for someone to make a decision. all the bars were super packed and we ended walking even further up into norrebro. the festivities ended in a smokey bar with a nice but angry manager who shouted at me for having my feet on the pool table. this is all pretty inconsequential, and for that i apologise. i am very tired and a little lost.

28.04.2008: me and kenneth have been playing some music. it's been metal. and we're getting it down. the riffs and beats are starting to make some sense. it's exciting. we played for two hours today and my fingers no longer hurt.

my calves though, i've been good and they're taking punishment. i've been running every day, actually keeping it up. sure i only run about a mile and a half, but it's a good start. this is my current route, it's nice and variable. and the lake is great, but it's drying up and summer hasn't even started yet. there's a good few meters of junk between the water line and the bank, it's a shame, but then maybe it's keeping the flies at bay. and i hate swallowing flies. worse up your nose.

hanging out in amager:

most everything else is america's funniest home videos.

27.04.2008: it's been a pleasant weekend. spring in full swing. perfect weather for sitting in christiania drinking hot chocolate. and finally we can eat dinner out in the courtyard, and all our neighbours say "velbekommen". hoodies at dawn.

saturday we were in town buying shit (no, it's funny because it's true). we were up by where ungdomshuset used to be, watching a drunk guy who could barely stand and he kept crossing the road. you know you should do something, but he's just drunk. he just needs to find a place to sit down and pass out. then he almost falls into the road. but he'll be alright. then he starts to cross with the cars still coming and a bus only just manages to stop before hitting him. it was one of those slow motion moments where your heart curls up ready to die, because you saw exactly what was about to happen and could have stopped it. some guy came and took care of him, sitting him down against a traffic light, but then he just fell into the cycle lane. we left when the ambulance arrived. then we grabbed some beers and sat in the park for a while. sun, beer, and the feeling of solid earth beneath you. i love grass.

i spent the night in a bar that played some exceptionally good indie (not exclusively). one of those bars where the best djs are women. i drank enough to get shockingly drunk (i managed to get paint all over my hands on the way home) and only spent 30kr. friends in low places.

today we cycled out to dyrehavn. it was forest day or something, but i'm not sure what was really going on. there were guys in old military outfits firing guns. there were also medieval nights. and people cooking hotdogs on a fire. and a huge chainsaw. etc. i tried to catch up with some sleep on a bench, like a proper bum, but it didn't work. then we went to the theme park and made the same mistake as last time, buying chips from the same place. two years later and they still put on way too much mayonnaise. she just kept on pumping it, unbelievable. and we went on the ghost train, which was as good as you'd expect. the whole thing was quite impressive though, that i got up so soon after going to bed and cycled all the way out there. i got saddle sore so bad you don't even want to know.

anyway, the starving dog is an interesting issue. i've seen a lot of criticism, but no actual statement from the artist. and no discussion about why he did it. i suppose most people figure that's unimportant and aren't willing to entertain the idea that it had worth (i'm not saying it did, i'm just reserving judgement). i 'like' the idea that anyone there could have helped the dog, but no one did. either way this is all irrelevant, because believe it or not there are groups that investigate animal welfare issues and they do their job. although they condemn using animals for art, they admitted that reports of the installation were incorrect and misleading. "other than a three-hour period during which the dog was on display as part of Vargas' exhibit, the gallery alleges the dog was not tied up, and was fed with food brought in by Vargas himself." infact, the gallery goes as far to claim the dog escaped. whether that's true or not, claims that the dog was tied up for several days are clearly wrong. it's not nathalia edenmont, who i will defend, and it's not skinning a cat alive, which i wont defend. but still, if you criticise it and you're not a vegan, you're just scum.

24.04.2008: i've been absent, but mostly not really. i've just been busy with other areas of the site (namely the freegan stuff). also i've been out of action due to an influx of chronic viral nasopharyngitis. that accounts for the last two days at least, during which i finished frankenstein (i blame its musty pages for my infection, i hate old book smell, sorry) and the latest jasper fforde book, a copy from the library with all the missing footnotes nicely glued in.

sunday was the 100 year celebration of danish women getting the vote. it was also hitler's birthday, but since less people were celebrating that we joined the women's march (nothing to do with our political beliefs or anything, or course) where we ate a lot of fortune cookies. we also liberated some of our bike from the basement. fun, but i do dislike coaster brakes.

anyway, just to let you know i'm alive and all that. and that you should read what the elle?, an article concerning the elle article on fbi informant anna. or you could just read the post on crimethinc, but judging by the inane comments it requires an extra special ability to understand biting sacrcasm.

and finally, to sabam (the belgian society of authors, composers and publishers), we say fuck you. "Atomium claims to own the copyright on all photographs of this building and their collection agency will sue you if you show them to anyone. Even if they are just your holiday pictures, you will still be sued. Even if they are for educational use, you will still be sued."

"the website says that under no circumstances should you take pictures of the Atomium." stupid belgians.

20.04.2008: a list of things i always thought i enjoyed photographing, but actually don't, would include protests and unpeopled landscapes. both of which are generally pointless (photographing, not participating). most times protests are just a stream of people, and trying to fairly represent numbers just becomes frustrating and futile. there's the hope that something exciting will happen, and that you're the one person who captures it and gives the world a worthwhile incendiary photograph. more often than not though, you're a scum photographer and you're a vulture and you're in the way. here is a perfect (and hypocritical, for sure) example:

all those fucking photographers and all they care about is their shot. where is the aid the guy was relying upon when he started graffiting the front of the police station? a few people ran over but any attempt at unarresting him was doomed to fail due to the ugly swarm of photographers. a photo will rarely help you get out of jail. especially if it shows you clearly commiting the 'crime'. (or in the case of mumia, even if it clearly shows the fabrication of evidence and corruption of the crime scene. and the police.)

on the other hand, there's those things that i thought i hated photographing, but actually love. at the top of this list would be people and bands. here's some photos of unit21, a punk band from texas who played in roskilde saturday night:

i was practicing for the headlining band, trying to understand the light and whatnot, but i think these photos came out better than the ones i was there for. but anyway, i give you hot hot hot (pronounced "hothothot"):

it was an interesting night. the venue was labeled as a youth community centre, or something along those lines, and it was in the middle of fairly normal and very danish looking residential area. but, for all intents and purposes, it was a dirty punk hangout. and as such it was reasonably varied, there was the odd goth, metaller and even a biazarre pair of identical trendy girls in attendance. the usual graffiti everywhere, a good smattering of crimethinc stickers, a stand selling badges, patches and records. and cheap beer. we've got to stop wearing white when we go to these places.

the journey home was all a shambles too. the wretched woman at copenhagen train station had confirmed twice that she had sold us return tickets, whilst she had done no such thing. as a tourist in a foreign country i was more than happy to board the train and argue my case, with no money and a canadian address what would they do? the problem is that the person responsible is completely unaccountable. the other problem was my backup arguement, that the two different ticket machines at the station only took coins or danish credit cards, so how was i to buy a return anyway? the flaw is this, why was i trying to buy a return if i thought i already had one? no one checked our tickets, but the band had us covered on their klipkort anyways.

they arrived at the station just in time for the last train, and somewhat drunker than when we'd left them (falafels and dumpsters had called us away). we crowded into a glass-walled waiting room where a few other 'normal' people had gathered and were smoking. before you could say "gas chamber" there were already several highly offensive conversations being thrown around. and to their credit the other people didn't leave, at least not until someone went outside, pressed his dick against the glass door, and then pissed all over it. in his defense, where else was he supposed to piss? on the rails? one woman's face was contorted in the most hilarious grimace, i wish i'd had the guts to take her picture.

the train ride home was much the same, but with less public displays of bodily fluids. i read my book, because i'm sad like that.

19.04.2008: we gave up looking for a bookcase. we've found everything else, but decent bookcases just don't seem to be in season. so instead we built one. it's all found boards and milk crates, and all ugly. it wouldn't surprise me if arla make their crates bright green on purpose, to stop people from stealing them. our shelves are totally ghetto, but they work. and i had a great plan, i'd cut out eight 25cm by 40cm pieces of cardboard and cover up the hideous green. a collaged postcard and photo facade.

but now they're finally completed i rather fancy them being on the wall instead, where you can actually see them. they look a little bit like this:

some of them aren't particularly worth posting, but for completeness and all that, y'know. and now i have no postcards left. apart from that drowning dog goya one, which has it's own ghastly yellow frame. and it's not exactly the kind of thing you want up in your room anyway.

other creative urges have resulted in me attempting four player backgammon again, but the results are yet to be tested. julie's also made me an apron, which is too cool.

now we're off to roskilde. the place, not the festival.

18.04.2008: we went for a walk, which i can just about manage. ever since i took up running i've been out every day around the lakes, and my legs are becoming somewhat unreliable. and painful. julie informs me this is one hundred and ten percent ok. i'm not so convinced, but really i'm just being pathetic. i only started on thursday.

but anyway, we were going to amagerfaelled and decided to take a route away from the main road, one that cuts through the weirdest block in our local area. all the buildings are unoccupied, their windows smashed, spewing empty beer cans and vodka bottles, graffiti everywhere. we took a second short cut through what looked like a car park, but we quickly realised all the cars were beat up. none of them had number plates and they were all parked at funny angles. some car doors we left wide open, some of them their windows broken, headlights falling out. flat tires. one double decker bus had been so completely decimated that i couldn't climb the stairs to the top deck. strangest thing i've ever seen. not like a wrecking yard or a pound, more like a haunted parking lot.

where's my camera?

elsewhere we're mostly taking advantage of friends in low places. because emil volunteers at the fair trade cafe (which i'm not decided about yet, since they're christians. but the charity claims to donate regardless of religious affliation, and they're quite large, so i'm sure they're decent enough) he gets two-for-one on drinks. and at the bar he works there's always some drink that needs to be drunk. i've had some very cheap nights out there. although i don't think the owner likes english people. but then, who would?

and speaking of the bible, isn't it funny that rupert murdoch owns the exclusive rights to the new international version of the bible? it's not much of a surprise though, since that bastard owns everything. no, literally literally.

fascist dogma applied. revolution by surprise.

16.04.2008: pissing into a dirty bowl in a cramped toilet, not an inch of wall visible beneath the thick layers of graffiti, my head teams with these thousands of sentences. and not one of them will sit still and be read.

several hours previously we're in a grime-delux basement studio, cigarette smoke clouding the air and with so many butts and bottle tops covering the floor that a lost pick is lost forever, and we were kicking out the fucking jams. it started as badly composed drudge metal, but over several hours it went through all shades of noise. all gradients. a rotating band of four or five people, four strings of rejuvenatation. a crate of beer. magic.

i have a new favourite book shop. they sell two different editions of the bible, both filed under 'b' in the fiction section.

and statues submerged in the canal.

just before the inspiration runs out.

15.04.2008: you want to know what? me too.

so my parent's house is now on the market, incase you were interested in buying it. but this is an interesting development is it not?

hey, i can tell when emil gets up because my http suddenly stops working.

and i just realised that i hardly read any blogs anymore. a lot of them seem to have burnt out. although i'm barely one to criticise. maybe i should have been keeping an eye on chris t-t's blog, he's become very prolific. check him out. how about you recommend me a blog in return?

this is nothing. it really doesn't deserve to be saved.

13.04.2008: yesterday was the third round of worldwide 'real life' demonstrations against scientology. i haven't had time to catch up with how it went in the rest of the world, but from what i saw the copenhagen demo was a lot of fun. we were there from around 1pm and there was about 25 or 30 people, crazy banners in hand and cheering every car that honked us. it turns out more people than i thought were against scientology. sometimes we'd have up to five or six cars in a row honk us. one van even stopped so the occupants could get out and, stopping the two lanes of traffic, get their photo taken with us. the scientologists didn't really make much of an appearance, and neither did the police. one cop car showed up briefly and checked some papers before disappearing inside the building, the poor guy. i also felt sorry for the woman who went in to buy books, but then, not too sorry. we're here to help her, but if she's just going to ignore us and long cat, well that's her problem.

we left at about half two to go denmark's biggest carboot sale (without the car boots). it was huge and mainly filled with orange danish designer kitchen stuffs, smurfs and trolls, VHS videos and donald duck books. one stall had a nice selection of old fantagraphics and drawn and quarterly comics, including some old school chester brown (which i didn't buy). julie bought a well nice and slightly girly watering can. and lots of donald duck books. the best find was a jagtvej street sign, which we thought we'd get for emil's birthday until the woman wanted 650kr for it. fucking ridiculous, the only people who'd actually be interested in having it are penniless punks. besides, it could have been from anywhere.

then this morning we got a bunch of decent books from the recycling dump. my plan is to start a book swap shelf in our courtyard. it's not something i want to rush into, because i really want it to work, and i think it relies on being presentable and having a good selection of modern books. currently we only have classics and crime. i also want it to work without asking for permission. because, well, fuck that.

and last night we missed a street party. but then i've been missing street parties for years, one more is no big deal. maybe it's why christiania was so quiet, or maybe that has more to do with it barely being spring. i'm still waiting for my balmy evenings. always.

actually, the weather has been delicious. keep it coming.

except the night before last, when we went to hang out with emil whilst he was working at a bar near norreport. we caught the bus there, but walked back in the shitty rain. it was a good night though, and a very cheap one too (thanks emil). we got a shot of emil's creation on the house, a nasty mix of fernet branca and tabasco titled the slate scraper. also some idiot ordered two white russians and then left without them. and everyone knows how much i like my white russians. plus the music was actually good. for a rock bar. they only played a few songs i can't stand. my memory is thankfully a little hazy, but i've got a line from 'sweet child of mine' in my head, so that must have been one of them. i smiled at weezer, and weezer smiled back.

we woke up with a traffic cone outside our room. no wait, wasn't that this morning? maybe not. anyway, we thought it had come from just down the road, but apparently emil had dragged it all the way here from the other side of town, on the metro and all, only to find them outside our house already. nevermind. this story wasn't really worth telling. not many of mine are.

10.04.2008: a while ago i dreamt that i finally got around to seeing richard kelly's 'southland tales'. it was a grotesque highschool comedy musical starring jake gyllenhaal with an overabundance of canned laughter. but as obscene as it was, it was nowhere near as ridiculous as the actual film, which i finally got around to seeing for real last night. i can't decide if it's good or not, but either way kelly is clearly a genius. of some sort, if not another. he's created a film that is so complete in its hilarity that it defies comprehension. the rock, buffy, stfiler, justin timberlake, mandy moore, fucking moby? it's absurd.

only in a tangent universe, ey?

ultimately, you probably need to love donnie darko and understand it completely to have a chance at thinking southland tales is a good film. something like that anyway. and you need to have read the graphic novels too. else what is the point? and probably also the book of revelations (which of course i haven't). anyway, i need to see it at least another three times. maybe i'll do a movie night quadruple bill - primer, donnie darko, southland tales and primer. you would all love that. and then i'd have someone to talk to about these stupid films.

and sorry for the lack of writing recently. i'm busy doing nothing. y'know, sawing wood and plumbing. taking back the wrong vacuum cleaner bags. playing co-op quake with emil. we hung out at studenterhuset again the other day, which was nice, catching up with more old friends. i am to shoulder my way into various bands. this has to happen for my sanity. i bought some comics and i'd forgotten how expensive they are in europe. and when we walked home it rained and hailed snow. big dense clumps of snow. weirdest thing i've ever seen.

alex is away, now is my time to reclaim dominance of the kitchen. phase one is to swap the contents of every jar, tin and bag. swapping visually similar ingredients (salt and sugar, sauce thickener and jeera, peppermint and thyme). technology permitting, i'll then install some kind of randomizer for the oven and hobs. that will be fun.


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