Tag: Fest

Midsummer in Gothenburg

I figured I’d spend this years birthday and midsummer low key, which translates into “biking like crazy around town and drinking beer in front of Farscape”, and it was interesting. There’s a post-apocalyptic feeling to a city which everyone has evacuated in favour of the countryside. It’s what the city will look like after ebola becomes airborne, minus the rotting corpses. Left behind as it were.

Just like biking at night gives you a new understanding of how a city can work, staying behind while everyone else leaves is an interesting experience. Everything seems more fragile, the sun and weeds and birds seem poised to invade. Next year I’m making sure to do something with friends, which is how I believe a day like this ought to be celebrated.

Or perhaps we can plan the perfect heist while everyone else is grilling hotdogs and getting smashed.

Guarding Enrico Pallazzo with my bare fists.

Given that I’m both handsome and easily amused, I was handed guard duty at the housewarming party for Hey, it’s Enrico Pallazzo on Saturday. As if by total coincidence that day marked the end of my one month sobriety; It goes without saying that beer improves the quality of life when you’re standing in freezing weather, trying to be friendly to people. What also helps is having a faux earpiece in one ear, and making an occasional pretense at receiving info from inside the party. Not many dared to call me on it, and those who did thought it was fun.

It was interesting to note the ten metre walk of dignity that people felt compelled to put on as soon as I was spotted. The avoidance of eye contact, the miniscule nod of the head so as to indicate friendliness, or alternatively the 1000 yard stare past me so that sheer determination would see them through. Gods know we’ve all been there, and I’m happy to say that a minimal amount of power was abused by me.

Carding 19-year olds was a bit odd, but even they seemed cheerful. I guess it’s because they’ve just barely reached legal age and still revel in being able to show a legit ID and not their older brothers bus pass. Because the housewarming was semi-private, the cost of getting in varied depending on who knew whom and what mood that person was in; The cover charge jumped from “voluntary” to 100 then down to 20, 50 and settled on 40-ish. The age-limit yo-yoed as did the rules of “this drunk or less to get in.” In the end only one guy was turned away; His indignant snarl diminished by his more convincing inability to speak in full sentences.

Hey, it’s Enrico Pallazzo is an ensemble of folks who got bored working for advertising agencies and started up something that nestles between advertisement and art. Adart? Regardless of their ambition, the space they are renting is beyond awesome. It’s beawesome.

Anna and Jan have commandeered a tiled room – imagine a large shower at a mental asylum, refurbished with a wooden floor – and there’s a big pillared hall which can be used for workshops, exhibitions or (like the other day) for parties. A grand space is an excellent catalyst for action; It’s going to be fun to see what comes off it.

“Earth Hour” was celebrated by turning off all the lights for half an hour, issuing glowsticks and lighting candles. Any doubt as to the symbolism of the event was dispelled by the unabated techno. Imagine that you’re Earth and one of the kids kicking you in the face has decided not to wear steel tipped shoes out of consideration for your well-being, but is still aiming for the teeth. Even so, there was an accoustic guitar, which I guess counts as a token of caring and a concession to uplugged entertainment.

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