Friends – Monocultured

Getting older, with people.

So, I’m 40 now: my time halfway served and I’m nowhere where I thought I’d be when I was a kid. I’m in a good place though; Irrespective of the current depression and the resulting mental miasma, I have a loving girlfriend, a job and my deadlifts are getting better. Also, just a this summer I experienced my first surprise party! Sara had pulled together family and friends – some I hadn’t seen in a long time – to show up at our allotment cabin and celebrate my birthday. It took me a while to process and I was honestly out of words, but it brightened my week and the urge I’d had previously to flee the city was gone.

As anyone with a birthday near a national holiday can affirm, childhood trauma of overseen birthdays is a thing – I still remember my birthday cake melting abandoned because the kindergarten teachers hurried us out to celebrate midsummer. So I wasn’t looking forward to the hosting a party anywhere near my actual birthday since it usually doesn’t work with peoples plans.

Sara managed to arrange a surprise and got all these people together to make me happy, and it feels nice to be reminded of that I’m not as alone as I sometimes feel. It feels real nice.

Music mæstros

It’s that time of year, in the life of slightly bored 30-somethings with a bit too much free time on their hands, that we drink wine and say: “Gosh darn it, but wouldn’t it be awfully nice to get together and do something? Like, I don’t know, music?” And lo! They made a mark in their calendar, and once the date came closer and the convictions grew flaky, a battlecry summoned the frail dilettantes — “Wine! At least there will be wine, surely!”

The jokes about drinking too much wore thin by the end of day two, but despite some wear and tear on livers and brains we somehow kept the process up for the whole weekend — much thanks to Petter and Sara, who had some sort of “idea” of what this might end up being — and by the end of it all we had two songs, a bandcamp site, portraits, and importantly a name: VECKA7.

The songs are made for driving, but could also serve other purposes, possibly. Sara, Erika and Jeanette on song and various instruments, Petter & Sara on guitars and bass, and I’m the reason there are drums and some plinky noises in the background. Go listen and download: VECKA7.bandcamp.com

The co-habitation equation

So, anyway. Last couple of months have been eventful.

I’ve moved in with Sara and Tura in our own apartment. For the first time in forever I have my own name on the door and actually live where I am registered. Beside everything else, it’s a good feeling to be able to greet neighbours without wondering who will start asking questions about when you moved in and if you’re subletting legally. Besides the everyday hassle of arranging to pay bills in someone elses name, and getting the mailman to deliver your post, it’s grating to constantly be nervous that something might break which you won’t be able to fix yourself and can’t call a super about.

We’ve already called the super over twice, and actually getting a busted bathroom tap repaired within a day is a surreal experience. Renting an apartment feels good. Of course, there are some minor issues. For example, since only Sara is on the contract, the super put up only her name on the door. Apparently it’s policy, and besides he couldn’t be arsed to get over here with a Dymo to print a new label. So I bought a Dymo and now have a fancy label on the door, set in a “hollow, italic, fat, border” style, which says “S. Henriksson & M. Pozar.” Yes, I’ll be posting a picture as soon as I’m done admiring it. There’s another option for the styling on the Dymo, a wide papyrus scroll, and I’ll have to see which one is more classy.

Petter showed up with the kids last week and we had the first “guests over for dinner” event, and just the other day Carl-Johan dropped by for lunch, so we’ve checked “someone just casually stopping by” on the todo-list as well. We’re going to throw a housewarming party or somesuch as soon as we have the “somewhere to sit” issue resolved, but so long as we keep to a manageable number of visitors at any given time, we’re open for business.

Unless I’ve explicitly told you to fuck off, we have a standing blood feud, or I owe you lots of money, consider this an invitation to drop by at any time for tea, coffee, beans or wine (bring wine). Look me up in the book, I’m listed at my own adress, dontcha know.

Christmas and cohabitation.

The holidays passed with little fanfare, I spent them in Stockholm with the closest family at hand and the rest at Skype distance. Mom isn’t her full self at the moment, and the dinners were slightly less elaborate than the five course meals we usually make. I rediscovered how much work goes into making the potatoe-dumplings, which I wolf down by the dozens. Christmas Day I and Tomasz joined in the public celebration of the birth of beer, and sat with Admas in a bar and discussed ambitions, and fashion, and then I think I had Calvados?

On a recommendation from Miss Walker I visited Tevere, a bakery which also carries vegan pizza. Rather on the expensive side, but the pizzas were awesome both times I ate there.

New Years day was spent at the gym with Sara, where I nearly passed out. I can only assume that my body shut down out of fear that I would become too fit and muscular. In the evening a bunch of us gathered at Petters new place. We saw the fireworks over Hissingen skyline, although I saw most of it through the viewfinder, being concerned with capturing it. Next year I’d like to be somewhere where the explosions can actually be felt. It’s well know that arrhythmia heightens ones appreciation of sparkling things.

Andreas visited for a short while, and then he left for New York — or as it’s henceforth known: Nävvan. I’m still working on the mixtape he’s getting for birthday. I’ll have to make up for it by making it really good, and perhaps actually sending him a magnetic tape. I have half a sack of those just waiting for coming to use…

And speaking of having a bunch of old stuff laying around, I’m trying to getting rid of as much of it as possible, as we’re moving in together. This is momentous and exciting, and a first for me. We’re already discussing wall colours and such, and my suggestions of stripes the colours of a 1920 ice-cream stand have met with tacit approval. Perhaps it’s not so much approval as acceptance and stoic suffering; “Enduring love” as it were. Or perhaps it’s just an understanding that I talk a lot and will likely have changed my mind before we move in.

I’m moving out of my place as soon as possible and have hopefully already found a taker, and we’re moving into our new place beginning of March. This is going to be an exciting spring! I’m gonna Sawyer y’all into plastering and painting walls, so you might as well start digging out your coveralls. I’ll consider offering light snacks and coffee to sweeten the deal even further. But before we get to that, there’s the whole “moving” thing. You’ll be happy to know that you’re welcome for that as well, as there’s no end of the enjoyment my friendship offers.

Computer games and almost an opening.

Olle Essvik has been working on a computer game based on Beckets Waiting for Godot. A month ago he gave a presentation of the finished first part of it at Gallery 54, and I took the opportunity to record a short video. If you like to play the game you can do so at jimpalt.org/waitingfor and should you want to learn more about the making of and thoughts behind it, you can read an interview in Swedish at konsten.net and another in English over at Game Scenes.

Following that, Andreas Vesterlund is presenting the Skup Palet event week Your Mentality is Alert. It was a week-long process oriented collaboration which ended with not so much an “opening” as a “closing of the process so far.” In practice, it’s difficult to organize something which looks like an opening without interpreting it as one, but in the video Andreas tries his best to explain what has been going on and some of the ambitions going into it.

Both videos are in Swedish.

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Every once in a while I think I ought to be more serious in documenting these kinds of events in Gothenburg, but can’t seem to make good on my ruminations. If you enjoy these videos, or if you have suggestions on improvements, let me know and I’ll add your voice to the todo-choir.

Honestly, one of the things driving my ambition to make a more focused video blog is that I get to play with my old MIDI keyboard, and I’d have to finally learn After Effects properly to do titles and whatnot. In addition to, you know, providing a cultural service with above average editing and good taste.

Mateusz saved your life, remember?

The site for the lying project is now up and available on www.houseminor.org. You ought to check it out because it’s exactly the kind of thing you’d like! I’ve changed the mission statement a bit from the first post, but the main idea is still the same, as well as the goal: To print a magazine containing no facts whatsoever. I’ll document the progress here on the blog, but www.houseminor.org is the main resource for the project, so look to that.

It’s easy to get ahead of oneself, and even though it feels as if the hard part of the project is behind me, the actual task of collecting, editing and printing the magazine might prove to be more work than I’ve imagined. Also, I have to convince you to tell me a story, and I would have a hard time convincing a starving man to eat, let alone do something like this. Regardless, I’m looking forward to seeing what might come of it, and more importantly how other collaborative projects could be organised. I want to work with others but haven’t really found the setting or approach to doing it — but if you’d trust me with your time and effort I’ll do my best not to disappoint you. I have outlines for at least five more issues — on other topics, of course — and am open for ideas and suggestions. We can make really awesome ephemera here, people.

Of course, it all starts with this one issue, so this is what I’d like you to do: Tell me the story of how Mateusz saved your life. You can put any spin on it you’d like, as long as the central premise is the same. You don’t have to tell it in English, and you don’t have to have it perfectly memorised; You’re telling a story, and we’ll polish it before we’re done.

Call the project voicemail through Skype (user Mateusz_Saves) or on Swedish landline (+46 (0)31 799 90 97). If you prefer to send a finished recording or a text, use the address mateuszsaves@monocultured.com.

Thanks to Sara H, Anna G and Petter B for assistance and criticism.

Here be flat country

The other week, I travelled with Sara to Copenhagen for a couple days, and boy is that city annoying when you don’t have a bike. I mean, the distances! The flattyness! The being-run-over-by-bikeiness! Other than that it’s rather pleasant, although the allure of moving there for a bit has diminished over the last couple of times I’ve been there, for some reason.

We stayed with photographer and all-round interesting person Kajsa Gullberg, which was terribly nice of her. Waking up to the smell of newly baked cinnamon buns was awesome, and would have been even more awesome if they’d been vegan; it was the pastry equivalent of cock-teasing. I did get to try oatmeal made with ginger though, which was really good.

I was a bit miffed when I couldn’t get vegan cake even in Christiania, bastion of alternative lifestyles that it is, when both Kajsa and Sara were stuffing their faces with banankage. The baker, probably knowing pretty well the tastes of his largely baked crowd, said he didn’t do vegan cakes “cause they’re crap” and I was this close to whipping out my phone and go all like Instructables Chocolate Cake, bitch! but thought better of it since the muscle-relaxed people behind me seemed rather eager to eat cake nom nom nom.

The city subway is all automatic, allowing you to sit in front and watch the tracks whizz by. Très cool. As an added bonus, any picture you take while in motion will come out as a wormhole tunnel / space anus combination, which looks fascinating.

Almost ten years ago I visited Gothenburg to cover the demonstrations against the EU ministers meeting. On the heels of that, in the fall of the same year, I visited Copenhagen during a workshop with Tone O Nielsen, this time as a participant in demonstrations and walks through the city. I didn’t pay attention to where I was at the time, my retention of street names being piss-poor at the best of times, but when we crossed a bridge and Kajsa mentioned that the building just across the wall was a prison, I realised that this was the place where I had marched with the black bloc, trying to push past the police to get to the people detained the previous night.

The push was half-hearted, and except the attempts at breaking up the demo by the police and their constant harassment, I remember freezing. The walk wasn’t all that long, but we were snaking our way through the city for the better part of four hours, and it was awfully cold. Once we reached Nørreport — iirc — there was collective release of pent up tension, and I felt exalted and happy. It’d odd how much you are affected by something as intangible as the collected stress and resolve of the people around you.

West coast to coast, GBG → SF

Mom brought me and Tomasz along with her and Jozef to San Francisco and then Hawaii, and I thought I’d sum up while I’m still here. I’m in full on vacation mode, and between driving around Oahu and laying on the beach, time sure flies. I haven’t been able to dive cause of a cold clogging up my head, but I did snorkel and see an underwater turtle. It was awesome. Other observations:

1) The IHOP doesn’t carry anything vegan except dry toast and lettuce. It might actually be for the better though, as I got to watch others pig out and didn’t hate myself afterwards.
2) Tofu is common, but even “very firm” varieties are watery. As I write this, it’s been frying for 30 minutes.
3) If you leave crisps out for an hour, the humidity will reconstitute them into potatoes, at least in Hawaii.
4) Saying “C’mon let’s go before we get sunburned” for an hour does not in fact stop you from getting burned.
5a) It takes three days before Speedo’s seem like dinner wear.
5b) Speedo’s, although tight fitting, do not stop sand from abrading your tender bits.
6) People really like to show of their military credentials. Like, really.
7) Waves are big as fuck in person. Thinking about dying is an interesting thing. Also, see “abrading” above.
8) People do the “hang loose” sing a lot, and they seem to be serious about it.
9) “Noisy” and “gargantuan” are selling points when buying cars.

We stopped by San Francisco on our way to Oahu and Petter met up with me and Tomasz for a days walking and sightseeing. Back when I went to New York I had the ambition to hang out in local bars and ordering coffee with the pronunciation I’ve heard from old Jewish ladies in sitcoms. In San Francisco I didn’t have any ambitions of my own, so was very happy to be guided around by Petter, who has gone completely native and is talking to everybody and everyone, embodying the concept of being friendly. It’s an astounding transformation, and one can only hope that he’ll bring some of that attitude back with him. In Gothenburg, he’ll be that really nice and talkative guy you will hear about. He’s still there for another week or so, looking smashing in his new hat and posting pictures here: annanstans.tumblr.com.

For some reason I’d gotten into my mind that I ought to buy a “proper kitchen knife” since that is something which adults seem to do a lot, and I bought a MAC from a nice lady in Chinatown, who threw in another knife and a backscratcher just cause I was nice. She asked me to pass on the word that they ship cheaply to Sweden, and that Kiwi knives are the new black and available, so stop by The Wok Shop if you’re looking for cutlery or such.

Of all the places one can be sick in, Hawaii isn’t the worst, and between getting a really uneven tan and driving around the island, I’m enjoying myself plenty and don’t really look forward to the cold back home, nor the awaiting jetlag which will kick my pasty ass.

But what if moss is good for the stone?

I’ve moved to my own place. After five or so years living with Anna, Albin and Eskil, and lately with Jan, moving to live on my own feels almost like a betrayal of some ideal. I’m not sure what ideal that might be, but it seems indulgent, bordering on, dare I say, bourgeois. I’ve never had a place of my own, so for me this is all terribly exciting. I’m like someone coming out as gay and boring all his friends by talking non-stop about how excited he is to suck dick; —Like, I have a fridge. It’s full of my stuff, and I just left five snowballs in there for a week!

Sara & Olle helped me move two weeks ago, and I’m now the shady subletter of Helgas previous apartment. It’s a one room apartment overlooking the river, with Norra Älvstranden on the other side serving as an example of just how low one might slip into upper middle class without realizing it. The Stena Line passes outside my window, as does the motorway, lending an industrial city timbre to the place.

Moving didn’t take long. Like a goldfish in a bowl, I hadn’t grown beyond what I could fit, and so transporting it didn’t take longer than an hour. Packing all my crud, crap and junk, took appreciably longer. When I cleaned out the room, it was emptier than it had ever been during my stay at Gröna Vallen. The indoor climbing wall was as I had found it, and for all the years I’ve slept next to it, I had tried it only a handful of times. My shuffling feet had scuffed the floor and my bike had left tracks where the rubber had rubbed off.

Living by oneself has upsides. Jerking off is easier than ever, and will be even easier once I hang curtains, seeing as how I live on the ground floor. Curtains would also allow me to work easier during daylight hours, and I’ll no longer have to fashion light controlling plastic head sleeves to get the retouching work done. I don’t own much furniture beyond a bed, so my living room is rather bare. I’m looking into getting an adjustable table and ergonomic chair, but this furniture business will take a while to arrange as work has piled up. I hope to get a coat hanger within two weeks, but am not taking bets on it. Laundry is off the table and buying underwear and shirts in bulk feels like an excellent solution.

Cleaning the old place out was sad. Sad like Bruce Banner walking down the road, but also sad as in confusing. When my year in Iceland was up and I got back to Sweden, it was as if I was the only witness to what I’d experienced there, and were I to go back there would be scant evidence of me ever having been there. Cleaning out the fridge, or the shelf in the bathroom, I felt something similar; I was vanishing the traces of myself, and was wondering what intangibles I was bringing with me, and what I was leaving behind.

This, of course, should only serve as a reminder that what is important in life is most often our relationships with other people, and that taking care of those, and being mindful of our friends, is a continuous process and should not only hinge on routine but on choice and hard work. (Most people know about this, but I am surprisingly resilient to the obvious) And in total contradiction to this, I have hardly met with anyone the past two weeks, except Sara who has taken pity on me and enjoys laughing at my idiot ramblings about how I will craft a table with a built-in scanner.

I’ll make good on this though. As soon as I have something to hang a coat on, and no longer live in paper bags, and have bought either a broom or a vacum cleaner, I’ll have you over for tea or beer and maybe Xbox if I lose my mind enough to buy one.

Three Quarks for Master Mark; alt_cph 2010

I’m in Copenhagen at the alt_cph artfair. Unlike last year, I’m here on a technical assignment, as I and Jonas have been tasked to document the Skup Palet project with which Anna and Jan are participating. They’ve relocated 13 kids and two teachers from Hølstebro into the exhibition space, where they have daily classes. Read more about it on the alt_cph homepage as well as skuppalet.org.

It’s been great fun to see the project take off; just the logistics of transporting and housing all kids is daunting, but if you take into consideration that the parents had to be persuaded and the accompanying teachers are doing this on their own time, it’s bloody impressive. The kids have been extremely brave in the face of it all, and hardly flinch at all at being gawked at by the art-going public.

Jonas has been shooting video, I’m the sound guy which has had me wearing headphones and staring into space as if in a daze. I’m pretty sure that we’re visible in every picture anyone has taken so far, since we’re climbing all over the podium to get the awesome which Jonas keeps delivering. Should you want to see me looking confused, holding a microphone, you can do so in the video here: dagbladet-holstebro-struer.dk