Author: Mateusz

Bitter och ensam på bokmässan

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Ah, den ljuva bitterheten är nog en av de roligaste inslagen med att gå på sådanan här evenemang. Man kan muttra över dem som står och stirrar mitt i gången, och man muttrar när någon annan muttrar över att man står mitt i gången. Ölen jag drack till lunch har slutat verka och jag är istället trött. Jag tror en tandvärk har gått upp i huvudet på mig så att en vätte slår mig med spikklubba i hjärnan.

Koman man hamnar i här är påtaglig. Jag fick ställa mig rakt framför en bekant innan han kände igen mig – jag kunde skönja hur hans ögon likt en gammal autofokus fick ställa in sig på mitt ansikte. Undrar hur många människor jag känner som jag gått förbi på armlängds avstånd.

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Jag begriper inte hur Bert Karlssons nylle kan anses rumsrent nog att pryda en bok, än mindre författa en. Är det bara jag gärna ser att han får stryk?

Bok- & Biblioteks-mässan 2007

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Yes yes, nu är bokmässan igång igen. Jag borde ha sovit bättre, jag borde ha förberett mig bättre, jag borde fanimig tagit med mig strömkabeln till datorn. Det får bli fotobloggande nu på dagen, så sätter jag upp lite videos ikväll.

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Stämningen på mässan är inte lika på topp som förra året. Det vajjar inte lika många flaggor på stan som föregående år, och folk känns lite mer avslagna. Eller så är det bara jag som är bakis och inte har wiben riktigt. Årets tema är Estland, vilket innebär att Estlands president kommer hålla något sorts tal och två dussin författare från landet är här. De har också en av de finare montrarna som jag sett på ett tag, med någon sorts 2001-monument pondus upp till taket.

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Precis som vanligt kommer bibliotekarier att prata om behovet av att locka in ungdomar, och precis som vanligt kommer vissa förlag att klä sig lite crazy och eventuellt ge dig en ballong-hatt för att du ska stanna just vid deras monter. Det är 881 deltagande organisationer och förlag här, och alla vill ha din uppmärksamhet.

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Mängden små presentationer som hela tiden pågår är förundrande. Publiken kan variera från ett femtiotal till två, och presentatörerna måste i de flesta avseenden ha föreställt sig något annat, något mer glamoröst. Kanske såg de för sitt inre öga hur förbipasserande skulle häpna över den sanna retoriken och visa intresse för Lingonens historia i Dalarna.

Entusiasm är det inte brist på här; så många vill så mycket.

Eh, jag tror jag har satt mig just framför Estlands president som ska hålla ett tal. Ska nog gå och dricka kaffe och hitta den personen som blivit förbisett till förmån för invigningen.

Bookfair

I’ll be reporting from the Gothenburg bookfair this year again. Last years reporting can be found if you click on this text. In the meantime, I’d like to try out which of the video formats work. I’ve heard complaints that some of the video that I’m putting up on Revver don’t parse properly, depending on platform and browser.

I’ve been using Revver for the past year for two reasons:
1) The video quality is slightly better than Youtube and the like. It’s still not as good as hosting my own high-quality Quicktime movies, but that’s a bandwidth issue.
2) I get a pittance every time someone clicks the ad in the end. This hasn’t worked out all that well since Revver don’t localise the ads to audiences. Many of those reading this are from Sweden, so have no interest in the latest blockbuster crap that is premiering in the states.

I’ll be switching hosting company within a month, and will hopefully get an updated version of the blog software and unlimited bandwidth. I don’t know if there’s a point in putting ads on the blog, but on the off change that I get Slashdotted or Boingboing-ed, it might work. Anyway, what’s your kneejerk reaction to ads, and ads in the videos. Let me know, I’ll pretend like I care.

From the top, here are four different versions. Let me know in the comments if any of them don’t work, and in case you like one over the other, let me know that as well. Oh, and don’t forget to mention your browser and platform. (The last video is too big, I know, but I’m interested if it works)

Flash using Javascript:

Quicktime:

Flash embed:

Quicktime using Javascript:

Chess success

I Finally won over Elliot at chess. It might be a one-off thing, but since I kicked everyones butt this time around, there might be hope that I won’t suck forever and ever at this game.

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In other news:
* Maternal grandma home and still not well, but in better spirits.
* Paternal grandma going to hospital to assess possibility of either surgery or radiation theraphy.
* Looking to start my own business as photographer. Very nervous about this.
* I’m on Facebook because my friends made me to: www.facebook.com

Finishing a job, drinking wine: cough & boredom

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I’ve been a bit knocked out by a cold the past couple of days. Sunday was horribly boring. Before going to bed I realised that the only actual conversation I’ve had with anyone for the whole day didn’t add up to more than three sentences:

1) Saying hi to Eskil when he came by to pick something up
2) Saying bye to Eskil ten minutes later
3) “One pack of LM Light please” at the 7-11

I am looking forward to getting my last salary from Yfo next Tuesday – until them I’m on 50 kronor per day, and since smokes cost 40 I’m not in a happy place. Today turned out to be nice since Tobbe visited – we went to the driving range and he did a handbrake turn. I was impressed.

Saturday was mini-out-day and Jan was kind enough to buy me beer. And wine. And whiskey. And I was coughing my lungs out at the same time. I recall Lenny Bruce (Woody Allen?) making jokes about tuberculosis being a sexy disease; None of the people I spat pieces of my lungs at seemed to appreciate it though.

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2007 – the year of suck: Cancer

Got a short email from dad yesterday informing me that grandma prolly has stomach cancer. Wikipedia tells me that five year survival prognosis of late diagnosed gastric cancer is 30%. It’s still not confirmed, and I don’t know what symptoms lead to them discovering it, but it’s not good no matter how you look at it.

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Granma has always been extremely self-sacrificing to the point of absurdity in taking care of her family, and if some people can be said to live off of cosmic love rays, she’s living by sheer concern for the misery of man. Anyway: Fuck, fuckity fuckfuck.

— update —

Sure enough, it’s cancer and they’re going to do radiation therapy.

Also, my maternal grandmother is in the hospital as well, with what probably amounts to a gastric ulcer. She’s been ill for quite some time, and hates being as weak as she is. A couple of years ago when I visited her I remember hearing her cry out in pain during the night – she’d keep her shit together during day, but she’s more or less in constant pain and on lots of meds and I guess the stoic front can only last so long.

I can’t imagine how it feels to be clearheaded while your body is breaking down piece by piece. I imagine that at some point the feeling of being broken must become a personality trait. Or can you still perceive yourself as another person, a “whole” person?

Nuclear reactor DIY

* A while ago, David Hahn tried to build himself a nuclear breeder reactor, and hilarity ensued. As a kid I read a lot about blowing stuff up, but never did more than smoke-bombs. This kid started reading up on physics and chemistry and collected radioactive materials. Very good article: harpers.org

* This is rather odd. My old domain guiltyguiltyguilty.org has been taken over by a spam blog, but Google still shows the domain when a search for “mateusz pozar” is made. Yes, I do vanity searches occasionally.

* I once downloaded a video with a guy in a mullet describing how to fight with knifes. I don’t know if any of the pimple-faced boys that bought it found use for it, but it’s fun to watch. Here’s a video of a British person showing you how to defend against two assailants.

The best part is the one lonely comment beneath the video:

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Appropriate christmas followup

Here’s a greek blog that mentiones the appropriate christmas soundwork I did last year. The fun part is reading the babelfish translation of it. Here’s the original post for those of you who read greek: uneducated.wordpress.com

And here’s the babelfish translation:

Has already begun a long time ago fa’ltso ihej’wn that play “epohjaka’”? songs. Paro’lo however that some gentleman has syndja’sej 2380 such songs in a piece, me bothers by no means!

the appropriate christmas is a audio mix of some 2400 christmas tracks that i’ve downloaded over the years.

It passed through filters a extract of 8 seconds from each one from 2380 christmas songs (more many and of the collections of TimeLife that is to say), the syndj’ase depending on frequencies that it selected and the result it has duration 75 thinly. Sa we say entire album. Interest of project Swede, Mateusz Pozar.

why those frequencies? because it sounds good

Very good concept – even if by no means ey’iho (or digestible generally)!

The page project is found here: appropriate christmas me’sw www.monocultured.com/blog. Lower the piece and write in a CD, from here via the David Bendit / dev/urandom —? Pseudorandomness or lowered this torrent from him Took Bay, or straight from his page.

That is to say if the LCD Soundsystem do write “?45:33”? for the Nike then, the gentleman in question writes for all us!

Congratulations to Mateusz Pozar!

Windy art

A video with some random crap I’ve caught the last week or so. The opening at Röda Sten, Thomas Hirschhorn lecture at Konsthallen, and a crap party out by the bridge. It ends with a moneyshot of me. Ten years from now I’ll be looking at that video and thinking “Dang, I really looked quite nice before all the world war III radiation mutated me”.