Snusmumriken

Does anyone remember Spellbinder, a polish/australian scifi-fantasy tv show that ran (in norway at least) in 95-96. I was really fond of it back then. I had just started my life as a complete fantasy buff, something that would continue for at least four years. Spellbinder had everything I loved at the time, a weird fantasy world, a parallell world where the antagonist can start anew, poor people versus an oppressive government.. you name it.

I just refound the show on quicksilverscreen, and I’ve watched the first four episodes. In spite of how much I loved it when i was 11, it’s really remarkably bad. It’s a too clear spoken series about people internalising an oppressive government. That the oppressed people in the parallell world are played by polish actors speaking english underlines it in a way. The parallell world-cast’s unfamiliarity with the english language also makes sure that they can’t act. The dialogue is stiff and the acting is stiffer. In addition to this, most costumes look like they have been bought on H&M and sewn patches on. Lovely.

And nostalgia makes me enjoy it.

Yesterday was rather late, and my head was overloaded with school stuff, which in a way was underlined by the first beer being drunk while listening to one of my professors talking about postmodernist history. So when I reached uglebo later on, more was going on inside my head than outside. I might have zoned out quite a bit. Fortunately I woke up and danced weirdly after a few hours, and although i was very sober it was a rather late night. This morning i felt weird and groggy, but I woke up and headed down to the national library, knowing all too well that the best way of telling my mind to stop racing, is to find out all the stuff i’m wondering about. It worked.

Now that cafe amsterdam is gone, I have yet to find a new cafe that i can call mine. While Amsterdam existed, there was no need to go anywhere else, and now that it’s gone, there are dissapointingly few places that meets my qualifications. They must have inexpensive coffee, and give refills, the music mustn’t be too loud and I must be allowed to eat sandwiches out of my own lunchbox, because if I decide to go somewhere that isn’t school to work, I’ll be sitting there for hours on end. The lunchbox-issue is the biggest challenge, and to be honest I haven’t really been looking for lunchbox friendly cafes. Today I tried cafe Kristiania. They have deep leather sofas where you can curl up and read. The coffees cost 22kr, and the refills 10. They do sell food, so I doubt they are lunchboxfriendly, but i ate a slice of bread without anyone noticing anyway. Naughty me.

(This is one of the saddest songs i know)

I thought it would be nice to start the day by scrambling an egg without breaking it.

Just to give the pessimists a symbolic finger.

Yesterday, fortid arranged a debate about wartime history. It went well. There were people watching from the corridor, and even after the break, there were plenty of people who didn’t have anywhere to sit. And the audience really took part. NRK even talked about it on Kulturnytt this morning.

To celebrate that it was a wednesday, and that the debate had gone well, we had a few beers. And then some port at Ernsts place. And it was late, but not cold when i walked homewards. When I walked past Kristines konditori, the baker had already started working.

Whenever I’m done with what’s on my own homemade studyplan each day, I usually plan to reward myself with doing something fun. Usually, however, I reward myself with more studying. Yesterday however, I was done with my reading at two o’clock, and headed down to blitz to eat dinner with Karoline, the girl in red in the istanbul post.

At Karoline’s place, we watched Mio min Mio, which both of us thought we had seen before, but which neither of us had. Although the book made quite the impression on me when I was little, it wasn’t a good film at all. Not only was it too fast for the story, so it felt like something was lacking from every scene, it was also dubbed to Swedish from English, and the dubbed version was the only option. But it brought back childhood memories, and we ate copious amounts of popcorn. So it was all good.

After listening to one of Dan Fägerquist’s songs on the internet, we ended up returning to blitz for the concert. And it was good. He fumbled quite a bit at first, and needed some time to get started, but after about three songs he really put everything he’d got into the performance.

I’m almost surprised he didn’t fall off the chair.

“I like propaganda,” said my little brother one day, quite a few years ago. He had been downloading old propaganda films and posters from the internet. As he just a few weeks before had proclaimed that he thought we should make false statistics and more censorship on the telly, I got a bit worried.

Fortunately, the wish for false statistics turned out to be one of his finer traits. He had observed how the girls in his class used statistic average weight as a reason for why they wanted to diet, and along with the extreme makeover programs that had entered tv that year, they had started to talk almost obsessively about how they wanted to change their appearance. Of course he wanted to forbid the extreme makeover programs, when they resulted in fourteen year old girls who yearned for liposuction and wanted to “give their breasts a little lift”. And, as he said, - “I think it does them more damage to go funny in the head because they think they are fat and abnormal, than to be a little thicker than what’s average, or even what’s healthy.”

But back to the propaganda he’d been downloading. He said he liked the buzz that it gave him, and of course I instinctively replied that “sometimes it’s a bad buzz”, cause good propaganda can help to create goodwill for bad causes. Then he god me hooked. He showed me American “pay taxes”-propaganda from the second world war, and yes. It gave me the urge to pay taxes, and it gave me the urge to defeat nazi germany. Of course it also made me wonder why we don’t make our own tax-paying posters, to make people understand why a severely progressive taxation is good for society. Of course, the Nazi propaganda has pretty much the same effect on me, after all: who doesn’t want a society that stands together to protect what’s good, a society with happy families and healthy children? My mind has horrible connotations related to nazi germany, but in a way, it’s the fact that films and posters gives me this positive buzz, that fascinates me. That it manages to make me want to be a part, that it gives me a feeling that I should contribute, even to causes which I don’t agree with. That’s really impressive craftsmanship.

Break virgin lands!
It’s rather fascinating that the breaking of the virgin lands above, which gives me such a lovely buzz in my tummy, is related to the ecological disaster of the Aral sea that shrunk to nothingness because the rivers leading into it was used for irrigation. There was a Russian slogan that went along the lines of “The aral sea must die like a soldier fighting for our new motherland”. Sounds beautyful, doesn’t it? Even though it’s pretty horrible in real life.

There is an amazing blog that posts old Soviet propaganda posters, and gives you the historical background information to understand them, and a little daily Russian history tidbit to match. Incredibly fun reading. I recommend: this one about railroads, this one, this one and this one about physical health and this one about agriculture. Another fun thing is how you could just replace the red cross on this one with a swastica, and it would have been perfect for hte nazi market, although she should replace those russian blushing cheeks with a healthy german tan.

Final credit: I found the posterblog through Ida, which is what started the whole propagandistic flashback process.

The larp Kristianiabohemen took place this weekend, and it was good. No, - more than good. It was really really nice.

Everyone played historical characters. Some which we know alot about, and some which we don’t know much about at all. I played one of the less known ones: Lily Brun, a bourgeoise girl that Hans Jæger had been trying to liberate from the “chains of the bourgeoisie”. That way I could do pretty much whatever I wanted with the part, which was nice. What was mildly challenging for me, though, was to decide, as I went along, how much the character knew about the other people. After all, I know alot about several of them, but how much would a normal 21 year old girl know? While I have a book with all of Christian Krogh’s paintings, it’s hard to know how many of them miss Lilly Brun had actually seen. And while I myself know alot about Jæger’s personal life, chances are that the character didn’t know much about it at all. Have I read the books which everyone are talking about? The books in question were actually confiscated and not in public sale. Chances are that miss Brun hadn’t read any of them. I ended up winging it most of the time, somtimes knowing a bit more than I guess I should, as it made social interaction easier. It went quite well. It was a really fun setting to play timid and bougeoise.

To discuss marriage with Jæger was also really interesting, and he did a very good job trying to convince me that free love was the only solution, without ever mentioning anything straight forward, but talking about “urges that every man and woman experiences, even before the age of marriage.” He was amazingly subtle, and still I blushed.

I love when the border between myself and the part starts to blur, especially when the part is as different from myself as this one was. That happened this time. I actually blushed furiously when someone were mentioning masturbation.

At The first day of the larp several of the characters came from the theatre where they had seen Ibsen’s a doll’s house. Discussing that as if it was the first time I’d seen it felt weird. But to imagine that i had seen it as a young woman who most probably would be married within a year or so, without much formal education and still living in the house of my father, gave it all a new dimension. That detail gave me alot, as I knew the character would see Nora as the person she herself was likely to become.

Operaball yesterday was amazing. My dress was, as per usual not completely done, but it’s less than a day’s work from actually being finished, and it was good enough that I felt rather pretty. I danced alot, and I finally learned the troika, which was surprisingly easy. And we did loads of tarantellas. I love the tarantella. My waltzing was a bit out of practice, but after about a thousand long waltses that too went well. And the menuet *shrugs* I’d forgotten the menuet over the last few years, which sucks. I like the menuet and all the bowing and “look at my dress”ness of it.

My secondary school friend Stina, whom I haven’t heard singing since secondary school had the last of the little concert and I’m amazed. She was really good.

My legs are aching. I should dance more, and I’d have killer leg muscles.

After the ball, me and Karl went to some intern-party at Chateau Neuf. People asked if I was getting married seing as we were still dressed for the ball. And I had a few beers, which I hardly noticed. We ate some sausages (I have fallen in love with the meatball sausage. With sour cream sauce on it. That’s the most delicious meal I’ve eaten in a long long tome) And then walked home aroud 4 o’clock.

And then I came home. Took off my corset and fell asleep. I assume the “took the corset off”-part is what made the alcohol suddenly take action after I fell asleep, which again explains why I’m dreadfully hungover now, after only two beers and a small glass of drambuie. Every single muscle is aching. If this post lacks coherency… i blame those very few beers.

There’s a voice in my head that says “you want a carton of milk and come chocolate covered almonds. So I think I’ll go down to the shop. Perhaps buy a børek, some milk and some chocolate and curl up in bed and watch art school confidential.

I like living.

PS. I saw becomin jane on the cinema this past friday. It’s recommended.

PS2. Art school confidential was pretty much the most provoking and depressive film I have ever seen. As expected. but more so. I want to hit mister clowes in the head with something hard.

Ringo Starr: “Photograph” is beautiful. That’s one of the best songs I’ve ever written. I was writing it with George Harrison, so that also helped. In those days, and still to this day, I only play three chords. I’d write these songs, and then I’d give them to George and he would put in 10 more chords, and they’d think I was the genius.

There’s nothing quite as peaceful as a lonely sunday. I’m reading curricular material, and I’m playing guitar and I’m drinking tea. I’ve just taken a shower. I’ve cleaned the place and changed my bedsheets. There’s nothing as wonderful as sitting naked on the bed with cleen soft sheets against my skin while being absorbed with something fun.

Kvinnehistorisk natt/women’s history night is over, and I’m in love. Maud Lindstrøm came from sweden and had the smallest little concert I’ve ever been to, at half past two, in the middle of the night in Ellen’s parents living room. It seems like everyone else knew very well who she was beforehand, but I didn't. Instead I was completely unprepared for all the niceness.

Hyllning til lesbisk sex/homage to lesbian sex is one of the cutest things I have heard in a long long time.

I’m at riksarkivet right now. Hilde bought me lunch and helped me to get access to the book, and it’s thick as hell and I picked a beetle out of the cover in which it had eaten a tunnell a long time ago. I’m pleasantly surprised. The letters are clear and readable, I was seriously afraid of all those squiggly lines that 18th century gothic handwriting sometimes consist of, but this book had letters, and I could read about 80% of it. I've also found a two page long text about the riot itself, which made it look like there are other sources to the event. I need to get down to Tvedestrand within a month or so, to talk to local history people and look at the place. It'll be fun, but I might need to borrow a car to be able to get back and forth without spending the night there.

At least one thing is certain. I’ll be writing about a riot in Lyngør in 1801, and I’ve got 1500 interviews to read. God I’m excited. And I’m a bit scared. It all feels so big.

Yesterday, we were roleplaying, and we’ll have the last session in the campaign next weekend. I don’t want it to end. For some reason I grow really really attached to my characters, just like I can’t seem to let the fictional characters in the books I read go. I know that’s what leads to fanfiction, but not in my case. In my case it’s what leads to the constant “can we play more”-nagging. But Martin is leaving in a week or so, and Aksel is leaving next tuesday. I can't say I'm looking forward to it. I like them. I like having them around. I’m going to miss them when they go.

Watched goodness gracious me with Mikael last night, and it was still funny. I'd forgotten all about it until he came up with the dvd’s.