Snusmumriken

I started school when I was six. The walk to school takes ten minutes, but I was fully able to spend a full hour, seeing as there were cats and bugs and trees and snow; dead hedgehogs, grafitti and bottles that could be exchanged with sweets if we were lucky enough to find one.

The way home passed through the subwalk under the railway, and it was there that i discovered Art. I had that little children’s book that was supposed to make me like Monet, but i didn’t like monet and his pale smudgy colours. My kindergarden had shown us paintings, thinking that this would make cultivated persons out of us, but i didn’t like that either. Art that’s supposed to be accessible for children is more often than not dull, bland and too accessible to give any pleasure to a kid. Kids have imagination, and lots of it, thus inventive paintings of flowers and animals rarely do the trick.

But one of the walls in the subwalk was covered in grafitti. Blues and greens and purples, and moss and mushrooms. Mostly fleinsopp (the magical kind), but some round ones, some flat ones and some covered in green moss. I used to stop in front of it just to look at it, because i found it so beautyful. I didn’t know anything about magical mushrooms, but i did know that the painting on the wall was perfect, and that it described my own impression of what a forest really was like. It made hte subwalk feels like a moist and foresty cave. Underneath, it said “Mushrooms” in big, bold letter. I didn’t know what it meant, but i remember saying it aloud several times. It's a beautyful word, mushrooms. It’s almost strange to think that it’s the same as the norwegian “sopp”.

The mushrooms were soon covered by people’s lame and uninventive name tags. I wondered who could get themself to do such a thing. After some years, the walls of the underground started to fall off, and since that, it’s been repainted with white, grey or purple almost every year. I was so upset then that my Dad had to assure me that the grafitti would come back “they had to fix it” he said “It was so wet that paint didn't stay on the walls anyway. There will be new grafitti” he said. I wish it had been true, and that there had been new pieces, and new six year olds to discover pictorial art for the first time.

Fredrikstad people. Do you remember this one? I thought it was awsome.

This weekend has been spent looking at appartments. Seeing as I’m trying to find people who are looking for roomates rather than an empty appartment, It’s a weird little procedure. On one hand I’m looking for a place to live, along with thousands of other students, on the other I’m looking for people who wants to live with me, and who sees me and thinks that “this is a person who will fit into the home we have made”. I’ve only been to two viewings this week, and I’ll most probably end up going to two others during the next. I’m not really nervous. I will probably find a place to live, and everything will work out, but when I’m there, in a new house with new people, I get really self concious. It’s an audition based whether or not I’m able to let my personality seep through during the 15 minutes the viewing lasts. I won’t know if it’s successful or not until i’ve got an appartment, not until I have lived there for some months. But here’s to hoping.

Yesterday was nice too. I made crumpets, which is way too tedious compared to the result. It took forever. And Aksel made a banjo.

I’m having the post roskilde blues throat ache, which is a bit annoying. It’s like I’m walking in a forget my lunch - stop sentences in mid air - spill a full cup of coffee over my clothes at work - daze with additional difficulty to swallow. But I’m borrowing some work trousers from one of the men at work, and it rarely lasts for more than a week.

I didn’t get student housing for next year, which is a bit sad as I had settled with the idea of going back to sign studentby. But I’m planning to go and look at appartments in oslo this weekend, and someone i used to know asked me if I wanted to start a collective with them. It sounds like a good plan. I’m not really worried, but I want to find somewhere to live a soon as possible.

I’m able to play a whole song now. Badly, loaded with mistakes and, but it’s a full song. I’m happy. It feels like progress. Actually: life is pretty awsome. And here’s a photo of mr. dresden dolls drummer. Just because it’s cute. though not as cute as this hedgehog.

The first time i went to the Roskilde festival turned out to be the wettest roskilde ever. When I returned this year, the rain record of 2004 was beaten in one day. One would think that someone were trying to give me a subtle hint that roskilde isn’t my place to be.

Day 1. Saturday 30th june Public transport is mean, and the beginning
Problem of the day: I was going to take the bus along with , and , but although I had called the bus company the day before to make sure that i was guaranteed a seat, no bus showed up at the bus station, although I was there at half past eight. I found a train that was to leave at half past ten, but because NSB has sold twice as many tickets as there were seats on the train, they had to spend an hour reinforcing the train. Since the train was delayed, the corresponding train in gothenburg wasn't waiting. Or that's what we were told. They were waiting, and then drove off as none of the passengers from my train knew that the gothenbug train was waiting for us. I got on a train two hours later. I met up with the others in copenhagen, and went to the queue in front of the entrance to the festival. It was a bit wetter than expected, thus the whole queuing thing ended up being a worse idea than what it had seemed like.

Day 2. Sunday 1th july making the camp
We got into the festival when someone razed the fences around four in the morning, after spending a night sleeping while queuing, and found a good place to create the camp that was supposed to end all camps. I realised that during the night someone had nicked my tent-skeleton-thingie (teltstenger) and i found some others on the ground. They didn't quite fit, but the tent was put up. This is the day where it started to rain. Since had sprung her knee while tripping over a dwarf, she and lived at the caravan camp. That was half an hours walk and then 20 minutes by bus away. I fell asleep at half past six in the evening, and slept until nine the next day. My all time sleep record.

Day 3. Monday 2th july The good, the bad and the sparsely described
This is the day where it continued to rain. The queues to the cashepoints were enormous, so me and went into roskilde centrum. I bought sandals. We visited someone elses camp for hours and I had chocolate stout and honey ale and elderflower beer and coffee stout. Loads of different beers. The party and the people were wonderful. But after that the alcohol wore off and the rain started to pour down and after a really really gloomy interlude it all got a bit better again. This is the day where i got the festival-camp-feeling that i had been looking forward to, and where i discovered that honey beer is my alltime fabourite.

Day 4. Tuesday 3th july Gradually becoming more tired and gloomy
Me and went into roskilde centrum again. We walked around and ended up seeing the fantastic four film at the cinema. It wasn't too good, but it was a nice day. We ended up watching some danish band with an accordion and a man who sang about how his ladys dog didn't like him. All in all it was a really good day. We visited and in their camp, but since we had such an active day we were all a bit tired, and ended up going home after a few hours. The day ended with more than a hint of gloomyness back in the camp, as everyone were getting tired from the rain and the mud, and tired people get short fuse. We decided that we were all tired and needed to recharge some batteries before the actual festical started. Me and decided to go into copenhagen the day after.

It rained and walking became more and more difficult. This video here is actually taken just one street away from our camp, which shows the difficulty of the walking even more clearly.

Day 5. Wednesday 4th july Climax and then improvement
Problem of the day: It rained all night. Our neighbours went mean on us. They started playing loud techno when every other camp was sleeping, starting at five, continuing until we gave up this whole sleeping thing around eight. I got up and found out that someone had nicked my wellingtons, and that I only had sandals left to cross the calf-deep mud. Someone had also placed my trousers and raincoat in the mud in the mean neighbours' camp and jumped a bit on them. I ended up going to take a piss wearing underwear and a teeshirt, and was yelled at for looking like a slut, by the very people who at the time had placed their chairs on top of my wet and muddy clothes. I'd had enough.
In addition: went home. went ill.

We went to copenhagen, which I think is the smartest thing we did during the entire festival. First we went to Glyptoteket and looked at sculptures and things. Then we went to the hotel and slept from 12 to 5. We found a restaurant with food, and saw goya's ghost on the cinema and everything was nice and wonderful and fluffy. Batteries recharged like that, and being happy and fluffy is so much easier when you get enough sleep and when you are on a holiday without all the mud and the feeling of gloom that we had accumulated back in the camp. It didn't even rain that much.

Day 6. Thursday 5th july Festival starting and my mood being really good
Problem of the day: It rained alot. My mobile got wet and turned itself off (i don't know if it's permanently dead yet). The first concert was postponed by an hour because they needed to dig trenches around the tent. was still ill. Poor bastard. He was concious and there for the worst part of the festival, but had to go home when all the goodness occurred.

This is what the mud and rain looked like.

It rained alot, but it didn't matter that much, as we went to Nationalmuseet and looked at old stuff, which was nice. We bought new wellingtons, and I bought myself some new trousers and suddenly I was warm and dry again. Coming into a festival that actually had music and stuff was awsome, and I had a really good time. Discovered the rum and cigar tent, which ended up being my favourite place during the entire festival. And the mohito slush they sold was so incredibly good.

Watched:
+ bassekou kouyate & ngoni ba
+ björk

Day 7. Friday 6th july
Problem of the day: Suddenly my bankcard stopped working. Comepletely. I had loads of money on my account, but the card didn't react no matter how many times i tried. Perhaps it had lost it's magnetic powers or something. Aksel's parents transfered money to his bank, so we thought we should be safe by Saturday morning. and thomas went home, so now me and were the only ones left in the camp.

Teamed up with for maher shalal hash baz which is the weirdest music I've heard in my entire life. Not only were all the songs less than a minute long (they played a total of 120 songs), but they were also trying really hard to achieve the higher goal of making loads of mistakes. And there was a man playing on beer bottles and a clothes-rack. I'm still a bit fascinated. It was a day of goodness, and for once i wasn't the first to want to go to bed. The festival feel had really taken me in.

Here's a video of the hash baz people

watched:
+ musicians of the nile
+ camera obscura
+ in flames
+ maher shalal hash baz

Day 8. Saturday 7th july
Problem of the day: The money hadn't been transferred, and thus we were completely out of money and without any way to get home. We tried to buy train tickets online, but that didn't work either, cause DSB's websites were mean and dysfunctional. Managed to get hold of my little brother and he milked his mastercard for me. At least we were saved.

During the last couple of days, it got windy. Suddenly we had flying dust and mud. Just watch this video, it shows it all really well.

Ended up playing backgammon in the rum and cigar-tent rather than seeing hayseed dixie. I had been looking forward to seeing them, but it was raining so heavily that going out there in the wet wetness sounded awful. Aksel was getting better at the backgammon, and beat me two times.

watched:
+ slaraffenland
+ darko rundek & cargo orkestar
+ the flaming lips
+ red hot chili peppers

Day 9. Sunday 8th july going home
Problem of the day: Were awfully tired. Aksel was really starting to get ill. My train was having major issues. The one hour train ride from oslo to fredrikstad took me four and a half hour, by train, bus, train and lots of waiting. I was also getting self concious because i smelled so horribly. Coming home was awsome.

watched:
+ blood sweat drum'n'bass big band
+ wilco

CONCLUSION
Everything that could go wrong did, but i had a really good time nonetheless. Still: if I go back i want a) A car b) a camp with more people in it. Not more than five, but perhaps more than me and aksel. c) A better tent. had the awsomest tent ever. d) better weather. I wonder what roskilde is like in dry weather.I also got accepted to the masters program. There will be studying. Hurrah.