Doodles – Page 20 – Monocultured

Meat! Blood! Meatblood!

Anna has a suggestion. Or rather, “suggestion” might not be the right word since that implies “choice,” something that I’m apparently not being afforded in the matter.

Anna solarised

It’s about meat. It’s not only about meat, but meat being the fulcrum around which whatever ailment she’s hell-bent on fixing pivots. Her brother recently transitioned from a newbie vegetarian to stone age diet kind of guy – from tofu and sprout, to meat and red wine. Wine might be anachronistic, but the point is to exclude carbs and cooked food in favour of blood and anything red.

I’ve been vegan for so long that it’s not something that I think about anymore. And because it’s such an engrained part of my personality, this is the part that Anna suggest I shake up, shake down, shake it the fuck around.

Gif animation party

All this to get out of a rut, as it were. To tear down and rebuild on better foundation. Also, there’s the idea that the lack of hormones and whatnots in a carnivorous diet make you lethargic, and if I drink the blood of a boar I’ll suddenly become Adonis incarnate and get stuff done and have more energy and so on.

This is about challenging yourself and re-evaluating who you are. And in my case, who I am. If you’re a docile guy, try to punch someone. If you’re aggressive, turn the other cheek.

At the heart of the matter is that I don’t like to be coerced, and while one of Annas’ great talents is to be convincingly convincing, I have a hard time fending off the onslaught of a circular argument: The reason I don’t want to challenge myself is because I’m not challenging myself. Replace “challenge” with what you wish, and it’s clear that what you need is not what you want, because you’re used to wanting what you don’t need.

Crying billboard model

I’m rambling a bit. If often takes me a while to decode the advice that my friends give me, and it’s always with the utmost hesitation and suspicion; if I’m not in a position to decide what is good for me, on what basis do I judge the value of others’ advice?

At some point you have to realise that you might be wrong, and goodness knows that I’ve dispersed my share of halfwitted suggestions and criticism to friends. I’m not sure how to properly respect the effort that goes into this kind of feedback. You get advice and get yelled at by friends because, for whatever reason, they care for you. I just don’t know how to reconcile (what I’d like to think of as) my critical judgement with an acknowledgement of lack of personal insight.

How to deal with poor self-discipline, part 292

* In order not to smoke too much before breakfast, make sure that you finish all your cigarettes the night before.

You’re welcome.

Video dump of good

Taken from the nightmares, brought into your life. I present to you, the Korinthian:

MOUTHFACE by antonindebemels

Porcelain pistol from Yvonne Lee Schultz.

And if you’re shopping for a baton, maybe this can guide you:

Missing images, working peoples, drinking

In the odd event of you actually noticing the missing images on the blog, it’s cause my hosting company (bluehost.com) had a crash and managed to erase the last three weeks worth of uploads. Combined with rather unhelpful support, I’m once again considering paying through the nose just to get a hosting provider that doesn’t suck.

I spend the first of May helping mum painting her balcony. It’s now slightly whiter than it was. Yay. This is the first time that I don’t go to the demonstrations in eight years. I don’t feel a thing. I don’t know if I’ve lost the will to actually change anything or if I’ve grown into an utter cynic that believes that the only good political activism is assassination and sabotage, but either way my mums balcony is prettyfied with flowers and I have to put my cigarette butts in a jar with a screw-on top from now on.

I’m trying to drink more. Not so much because I enjoy getting drunk by myself, but rather because if I was a drunk at least I’d be something and I could have a reason for not taking care of stuff. As it is, I feel I’m just wasting my time. Alcoholism is a serious matter and should not be joked about lightly; it seems it’s so serious that you need more of a commitment than I’m willing to make. Fail yet again.

On the bright side, my allergies are acting up and I no longer have to pretend to be groggy to avoid the beggars on the train. I’m a glass-is-half-full kind of guy!

The night-bus travelers prayer.

Dear Lord, please let me have two seats
upon which I may rest my weak flesh.
And let not the person behind me kick the seat repeatedly,
nor the person in front violently lower their seat.

Allow me to sleep,
uninterrupted by others cellphones or luggage dropped onto my head.
And let me not worry about talking or passing gas in my sleep,
for that is embarrassing.

Keep any man with musky body odour away from the bus,
and smite the woman with too much perfume.
Let no light shine in my eyes,
not sun, road lights, nor computer screens,
for that is annoying.

Keep the bus on steady ground Lord,
for I lean my head against the window and bumbs make my teeth rattle,
and shake,
and I groan for death and deliverance.

My legs are too long,
my neck too stiff,
make me like jelly so that I may rest my weak flesh.
Lord, at least make so my iPod not runneth out of battery.

So, you doing anything this weekend?

I’ll come up with something.

Exhibition. Escort. Emotions. Almost fighting.

I was invited to show at the My Computer exhibition that Olle Esvik and Erik Boström curated at Gallery 300m3. Olle had comissioned two copies of the old virtual photography stuff that I’d done, and along with 23 others the space was well used. It’s a good show, and if you’re in town I’d recommend a visit.

Most of the evening was spent running interference though; old issues are new again, and since I suck at any form of conflict management (basically I black out and ramble) I start off by being rather rude to a friend and then stumble through a short presentation of my work.

The last couple of weeks that I’ve been working in Stockholm, my evening routine consists mostly of watching Scrubs late at night, and it’s amazing how well they manage to resolve conflicts. Yes, well, it’s a TV-show and their conflict resolution comes with sound effects, but still. Amazing.

I drink a bit too much of the champagne that Anna and Pär have brought as a gift, and I swollow an upper that Andreas presents me with. It’s guarana or somesuch, and I can’t tell if it has any particular effect. After hopping a bit we end up at Uppåt Framåt, and although the music is nice I become morose and have a hard time ignoring the more aggressive assholes in the place and become an aggressive asshole myself.

Stress + alcohol + impolite people = doom

The last hour I spend sulking and imagining how I will get beaten up horribly; it didn’t seem like such a bad idea, except I would prove the inevitability of violence as conflict resolution, and that would be depressing. Whenever I feel awkward or stressed, I often imagine myself getting beaten up; I’ve had this for as long as I remember, and even though it’s such an obvious example of projecting an external conflict where there is an internal one, it’s hard to make away with.

I dream that I’m sixteen, in a public bathroom, asking a girl that I have a crush on if we should kiss. She puts her hand to her mouth and vomits blood and a big lump of pink. On closer examination it proves to be her heart. I wake up and Saturday passes in gloomy existential meandering. Bah.

I just finished Farnhams freehold, a Heinlein book about freedom, racism and with an autocratic patriark as protagonist. Interesting, but bizarre. Get it from The Pirate Bay or a used-books store.

Notes. Pictures

Some pictures from the art fair at Sollentuna (goddamn what a sad but interesting affair) and random stuff from friday nights drinking and a couple of sticks that a neighbours kid arranged just so outside my door.

Interspersed, all the notes that I’ve jotted down on my phone over the past three years, often while drunk and (apparently) pretentious.

* Optimal strategy is not playing by the rules, but rather to break them just enough.

* Yet another motherfucker who wants to “fly to the sun” and go “to where the grass is green”.

* I spy with my… C… Customer? Hahaha. No.

* Lps angående jobb. Montering.

* Ergo proxy, unknown armies.

* Ranciere.

* En andra natur. Michael Polland

* Terrorist initiative.

* We’re all getting older. We’re never getting younger.

* What would the terrorists do?

* Bpworld.com

* Farväl Falkenberg

* Eve Eastwood

* Remember the vampire girl. Living off of the attention of others.

* Tout va bien. Godard.

* Föreställningar är ju oftast hemska, och de få gånger de lyckas är det för att taffligheten är träffande, den visar på bristen, det som inte fungerar. Och hur sällan fungerar det?

* Osynliga männen. Kan gå igenom väggar.

* Diskursfestivale.de

* I told someone that they could start the new frankfurt wave, and he got really upset, started screaming about raushenberg and walked away. I love the artworld…

* Skottsk gambit.

* Uffie musik. 30 rock.

* Tjolöholm. Ang centraldammsugare.

* Weekendavisen ang bokrecension.

* Morris. Engelsk socialistisk konstnär.

* Bokhora.se

* Kalufsen – folkungagatan.

ARG! The value of reviews.

I’ve made four attempts at learning Esperanto, but lacking any good reason to do so I’ve always given it up after a few days. The Lost Ring might be the motivation that I need to pick it up again. The Lost Ring is an Alternative Reality Game just unveiled, and it’s the task of all players to uncover the lost event of the Olympic Games.

Lost Ring is a worldwide ARG, and it looks to be really interesting. There are a bunch of blogs and wikis set up already, with translators standing at the ready to assist the playing community – go check it out: thelostring.com.

ARGs have a tremendous potential; they can be used to solve actual problems, be purely entertaining or used as promotional tools for companies (these are the most common, since it takes a lot of money and resources to pull this crap together) and the more we blend everyday reality with a fable or mystery, the better. Warping your mind can be a good thing, although those with paranoid tendencies might want to take a pill before engaging – pretty soon you’ll suspect everyone of being part of the game and wear tinfoil clothing.

Sparta review

I saw a trailer for the movie Meet the Spartans, a pastiche of 300, and started downloading a screener of it. I’ve seen a few awful movies lately (I would advise you to stay away from the latest Rambo) and thought I’d hit www.rottentomatoes.com for some info. The movie had a rating of 3%. No-one had anything good to say about it, and I subsequently canceled the download. The comments are a hoot to read though: Rotten Tomatoe review.

Inner city life

Jonas is out of town for a few days and has been gracious enough to lend me his apartment. Which means that I should be living the high life of a city dweller; Eating at the local restaurant, tipping my hat to ladies while strolling in the park, complaining about high rent and smog.

Instead I’ve caught a nasty cold that’s left me quite miserable and coughing up stuff that looks awfully like something living and very wrong – it’s a man-cold is what it is. I’m getting better, so hey, don’t go out of your way to buy me flowers or coffee or anything (oh do, please do).

Apart from a short lunch with by birthdaying brother, and a beer with friend, I’ve kept busy importing all the video we’ve shot for the museum and finished off the last eleven episodes of Battlestar Galactica; I’m now officially pissed off because I’ll have to wait until the end of 2009 to see the end of it all. Bloody hell.

Occasionaly, I gently hint my friends about stuff they might enjoy. Of course, those ingrates refer to it as constant badgering, so it’s pearls for swine more often than not. So if you happen to be fortunate enough to share my taste in space opera, you might want to scuttle over to a site where you can watch all of Battlestar Galactica.
Like so: Surfthechannel.com

Once the season ended I was left leaching off of Jonas’ neighbours’ wifi, downloading movies or whatnots. If you happen to lapse in judgment, as I in my weakened state did, remind yourself not to watch Beowulf. The technology of motion capture is interesting, but the movie is not worth your harddrive space. I don’t know what it is about Neil Gainman, but no matter how great his books and graphic novels are, I’ve yet to see a movie where he’s been involved that doesn’t suck murky ass. He often deals with myths and legends, and his characters are larger than life, so maybe the visualisation is best left to a readers imagination rather than that of a studio engineer?

Then again, the Golden Compass looks rather nice, so it’s actually possible to make pretty fairy tales. (Is that James Bond doing the voice of a polar bear?) I wish that they didn’t need to cutify it as much as they have though.

And I finally finished Quixko, (Quaxo?) and erased the cursed timewaster from my cellphone. This leaves me lacking in a timewaster (can’t get enough of those) so I am open suggestions if you have any; puzzles are prefered.