February 2008 – Monocultured

Karma. Collective punishment. Friends.

Here’s the view from my moms balcony a misty evening. The fog shows up every once in a while, and envelops the sleepy subclave in a blanket that allows people to forget what a boring place they’re living in. It’s very pretty then, gives the ambient noise of cars a spooky timbre.

Dans anslag

My Sunday reading is just utterly depressing: How to make friends and get a social life & How to be more friendly and social. it’s too close for comfort, and echos much of what I’ve been hearing increasingly over the years. It’s all from this site, which I suspect is American: www.succeedsocially.com

In its previous incarnation, I reccon that my local busstop was a concentration camp nazi child molestor:

As soon as it’s repaired, the moral backbone of society lash back and tear it down again. Whoever said that violance doesn’t change anything is clearly in the wrong here; now us commuters have to stand in the fucking rain. Yay for collective market force punishment. Bloody kids.

tiltad busskur

Having more fun than Jesus ever had!

I am not good at entertaining myself, and people are not returning my calls. Here are a few ideas I’ve been tossing around as to how I can become more “fun”:

Since I’m working with architecture at the moment, maybe now is the time to start planning that hobbit house that I’ve been dreaming about. I will pass on the round doors though.

Feed evil people to my free-range pet or get more hot sex with 40+ dancers who appreciate cheating on their husbands. Both are OK. Stop watching Californication which cannot be good for anyones constitution.

Photoshop the title covers of self-help books. Possibly subvert hypnosis self-improvement audiotapes to sow the seeds of confusion and future bedlam.

Go on vacation and learn to appreciate sleeping by the pool. Get a horrible tan and spend two weeks peeling my skin in public until I am porous enough to bleed like a sponge.

Accidentally knocking a catholic up, or dress like a retarded rabbit.

I was there to! Where were you?

Yesterday there was a big party behind Konstfack. A club called Landet celebrated 3 years, a long time in club terms, and had rented a factory with a capacity of 1500 people or so. My brother and Jonas are heading there with their respective clicks of friends. I’m supposed to meet up – first one there is the que placeholder.

Landet

Turns out that half ten there are more than 3000 people there. It’s like a very big lemming-fest. I estimate the wait to be at least an hour and a half, in the dark and cold, send Jonas a picture over the phone, and abandon the party-hardy-all-nighty plan, and settle for beer.

Landet peka finger

The weekend has been spend playing a repetetive flash game that I will not link in fear of addicting you, and catching up on all the podcasts that I’ve been downloading but haven’t bothered with. Particularly fascinating is the videocast that CDC (Center for Disease Control) is putting out. In their series on the history of biological terrorism, none of the spokespeople look into a camera, looking rather as were they recording a radio-show. Or they are mechadroids, with even their pauses and emphasis scripted.

Mrs Smith

Anyone who believes that the US doesn’t perform clandestine experiments with biological weapons anymore, would you say I am a cynical person?

In a panel on “HIV preventtion among homosexual men of colour” this haircut showed up. It’s recent footage, mind you. Most vidcasts they put out look like something that might have been created for ‘Lost’ or ‘Resident Evil’ – in my mind their esthetic can only refer to movies and dystopic writing.

CDC Braids

It’s depressing to see how easily all expressions of human culture, no matter how subversive, are assimilated into the katamari damashii of capitalism. It’s not that the expression is watered down, it’s the ultimate hopelessness of there ever being anything that might challenge it in itself. Something desctructive, infectious, viral and parasitic. We could use a cultural immunodeficiency virus. One of the good things that might come of the pirate movement and the trickle down of extremely complicated technology, is that it might cripple the system that also relies so heavily on it.

SAS död åt alla

How can we destroy the way we relate to our world, not just for the hell of it, but because it’s infuriating to feel that ones language, ones thoughts themselves, are not ones own and all that you can relate intellectually to is the Magna-Retarda of contemporary society.

Oh, and if you’re ever annoyed with me filming you, you actually only draw attention to yourself by flipping me off. Like so:

Arg kille

Living at a distance of 400 kilometers

Being in Stockholm I’m not really taking advantage of the situation. There are so many things to do that one is hard-pressed to choose.

Afrikansk dans
Bird skeleton

Most of my social life is managed at a distance – every three days I Skype with Anna to see what’s up, and I’m staring into the camera at the top of the screen and imagine that I’m still partaking in whatever hijinx they are up to back in Gothenburg.

I visited over the last weekend, helping Hanna to move her tremendous amount of ~~crap~~ valuable items into her apartment. (the roof is, like, 5 metres high!) Good fun was had, and Saturday was spend being exceptionally drunk and giggling like a school girl, while talking about hard AI and wallet design with Pär and Petter.

Rivningskåk
Skype Mateusz och Anna

One month has passed of my employment, much faster than I had imagined. I am working at the national museum of Architecture in the middle of Stockholm, on a web project about to the history of city planning.

It’s great fun, but I haven’t worked, as in work worked on any long term project since I did that flag burning thing four years ago. I’m not used to it, is all, but it’s progressing.

Here’s a sign of the times – someone demolished a bus-stop using a 17″computer screen. Back in the day, we vandals used stones. It’s like stone-age to technological society in fifteen years time, from a destructive point of view! Progress!

Skärm genom rutan

It was a hoot getting the first paycheck. I visited Albrecht in Karlstad, and only wish that when my 30th birthday rolls around I will behave with equal dignity and class. I still own him a present, but since I’ve spend my first paycheck on debts he’s just gonna have to wait until the end of next month.

Ali
Karta

For the next couple of weeks I hope to explore the city a bit better. Right now I only find two beer halls and one Chinese restaurant. Haven’t seen any exhibitions, and travelling three hours each day just to commute to the suburbs kills my ability to do anything except sleeping and smoking.

So, in order to cheer me up, you should invite me to meet people at least as fun and charming as I am. And even though my sexdrive has driven into a wall, I have been imagining standing behind someone cupping their breasts. I don’t know why that image has stuck with me, but there you go. If you know of someone who would appreciate being cupped, you know where to turn.

Cupped breasts

And if you want to talk to someone who has had nightmares about programming two days straight, I’m your man as well.