kungsängen. there’s an odd quantum effect here that makes me revert to being a teenager; i’m on the couch, drink soda, eat like a pig before slaughter.
moms boyfriend had a birthday party during the weekend (watch the video) and tomorrow i’m off to demonstrate my lazy solidarity with other working class folk, and meet some friends. too bad it’s so cold. but hey, if one day of marching a year is what it takes to keep the world just and equal, so be it.
whenever i visit mom in kungsängen i slump back into the worn, white leather couch, sleep late and eat a lot. also, i usually go and check on my teeth. no cavities this time, which was surprising. but yay how encouraging.
other than that, some buildings have been torn down, others have been built. met up with childhood friend matilda “you-are-wrong-by-default” baraibar and her sister carolina, and we took their kids for a stroll and then they left for the city. i just borrowed a bus pass from a neighbour (mass transit is prohibitivly expensive here) and am meeting up brother in stockholm proper later tonight. let’s see how many beers i can squeze out of him.
also, this is a good post on slashdot about the metaphore “information highway”. click the text below to go to the original post:
“Suppose the highways were like the net…
A highway hundreds of lanes wide. Most with pitfalls for potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member vigilante posses with nuclear weapons. A minimum of 237 on ramps at every intersection.”
ok, it’s getting late, and i’m tired and supposed to get up early to be moral and technical support for anna who has her examination tomorrow. yay for her.
the opening was spectacular. someone counted the number of people showing up, and 666 people turned up.
just the day before we’d been busy building the blessed thing, and come saturday i was walking around with one camera in each hand, trying to get something to drink before the art-peasants would swill it all up. i wasn’t fast enough, and the bastards drank everything and ate all the sausages-on-a-stick (not that i’d have any use of them, but still).
the stress didn’t go away all together, and because the show brought so many people together that otherwise might have stayed clear of each other, well, there were issues that probably will mess up the human relations here.
the first image is the 1000 yard stare of andreas on friday – digesting the horror (the horror) of the shitload of work that we still had. the rest of the images are from the opening and the ensuing party. scroll down for video.
as aside, i’m utterly freaked out by my bank statement, which at the moment reads “fuck you, you destitute beggar.” i got a letter from the student loan evil henchmen people (using the term loosely and generously) saying “yes we know you only have two months left, but we thought we’d help you loose some weight by not approving an extension on your loan. have an awesome life!”
so i’m 28, soon 29, and will borrow money from mom. i like the idea of family helping each other out and all that, but i’ve never lived much by it and can’t help but to shake the feeling of being an utter looser. plus this whole thing is making me feel like a mooch. if you have money, it’s not troubling to have someone else pick up the bill at a bar or for a cab, but if you’re broke it’s something you’re acutely aware of – it’s not a good feeling. then again, a recurring nightmare i have is that i’ll end up in a gutter somewhere. (a pre-emptive self pity, and a perfect excuse for not doing anything to avoid it)
speaking of nightmares, i had two dreams the past month that have stuck:
1 – somehow, there was a pool of young people that had to do service as sex workers for widows and older people. for some reason i was involved and set up a meeting with two older ladies for a rand-y-woo
2 – i won the world championship in sucking dick. literally. i don’t recall any actual sucking taking place in the dream, but i did recive a diploma.
speaking of which, looki what warren ellis found: [click image] 
it’s over. sort of. the exhibition opened yesterday, with a (possibly) record crowd of 666 people (seriously) attending. it was great. kellogs frosties great.
here’s a vid from fridays building of the show. dorota at the art hall was kind enough to stay an extra hour, and we were out at eight in the evening. to recap: it took six people five days of 11 hours labour just to build the show. 6x11x5=330 hours of hard work.
here’s the vid from fridays building. i’ll edit the material from yesterdays show and party shortly.
stuff that i’ve been doing during the four days that i’ve helped out:
* nailing wooden trimming to flimsy wood composite material
* using a big saw
* drilling holes
* fastening screws
* mounting big pictures on walls
* covering stuff in wood-patterned vinyl
* laser level measuring thingy is cool
* carrying stuff
and a whole bunch of other small stuff i don’t even recall but i’m sure seemed important at the time.
up at seven. at home at eight. i’m so fucking tired. and my “friends” are mocking me, offering such helpful remedies as:
1) a quiet jerk off in the bath
2) pre-chewed food that they can feed me with, like a small bird.
they were just teasing of course, in that friendly yes, we are laughing at you but we like you kinda way. heartwarming, really.
because of lack of sleep, food and health, i was silently cursing everyone in the hall until someone brought food and made coffee. i wished harm upon them in an embarrasing amount. a dull inner voice would say things like –if you move the hammer one more time i hope you die.
good thing i’m such a calm and non-violent person. (that way, when i finally snap, they can all say “he was always the calm and non-violent person, we don’t get it”)
because i’m a cretin i stayed up last night watching death of a president, which was a well done mockumentary of the coming assasination of george bush. well done, but not all that interesting in itself.
mockumentaries are interesting as a genre though; it’s basically invented news after the fact – so i had a fun time trying to piece together who would make a documentary like this in case bush got shot through the head with a frozen turd (as the case might be).
the esthetics were too somber for anything american that i’ve seen, but we only get the utter shit american documentaries over here, so i’m no judge.
bleh, i’m ranting. i’m tired and ranting. i’ll stop now.
i was helping out anna today, and what i’ve done can be divided into two parts:
1) i’m at the art hall doing nothing but listening to podiobooks because whatever i’m supposed to be doing hasn’t arrived yet.
2) i’m spraypainting some wood with golden car paint and then dress a bar in vinyl. it’s fun to feel useful and do things with your hands other than smoke, touch type and yourself.
also, i’ve been coughing like a leper ridden with tuberculosis for the past five days. i blame the tree-sperm and not dressing warm enough for a bikeride last week, but i’m sure the smoking isn’t helping. i swear i spat out a bit of my lung the other day, and my stomach muscles ache. (the excercise might be what i need to tone up before summer, but i’d rather get in shape in a less disgusting and debilitating way)
all in all, i’ve spend 12 hours at uni today, printing the flyers that are my contribution to the lounge that anna is putting together. they came out quite nicely, and i even have some numbered copies that you can buy instead of food!
oh, and if someone could massage my poor back, that would be super.
1) this is either friendly or a stab at someone slightly overweight. “dear brita! try this!! i got it from daniel but it’s too big for me. kisses / e”
2) house restoration – sometimes the old ways are perfectly fine.
3) these are lean and mean times. “gold bought. also tooth gold!”
albin, annas oldest son, has some sort of “work-practice” week at school. this has resulted in me having him along for a day in my regular artistic practice. seeing as my “regular artistic practice” isn’t very communicative at all, and that i’m mostly straring into a screen, drinking coffee or smoking, i decided to show him the principles of lock picking.
he picked it up quite quickly [har har]. in fact, he now routinely picks a padlock that i’ve managed to pick only once. he did it in litteraly ten seconds after a couple of attempts.
good for him. really. i’m not being bitter. at all.
hannas exhibition was well received, and it was fun watching some children trace the lines on the wall, asking their parents what it was all about. the parents said that it was a map of who had kissed whom. if those children only knew.
before coming to the show, people were quite upset about the whole thing – a sense of privacy and betrayal tainting phonecalls, emails and sms-s that was telling that the idea struck a chord with the memories of people you’ve woken up next to and rather not advertise as knowing you intimately. once there though, most people found it interesting and rather harmless.
there’s another exhibition coming up in a few days, and washing the walls of the ink is a slight pain in the ass. not that i’m doing that, mind you; i’m fervently trying to get my shit together and render the video from my mfa presentation. i’ve been looking into building a render farm for the home, and that would kick ass, but as usual i’m more interested in that than i am of actually using it, so there you go.
oh, and in case anyone in my audience has the same misconception of flossing as i had, let me set things straight: flossing is something that you should do not only when your teeth hurt and there’s blood involved, but might be a good idea to add to that daily routine that people are talking about. goddamit i ended up butchering my own mouth.
