On Sunday I fly to Warsaw and then get on a buss to Sanok for my grandmothers funeral. I will need to borrow a shirt and black pants when I get there, as well as visit a barbershop. I don’t do funerals so don’t know how to dress or behave. I guess I’ll take my queues from the rest of the family.

A couple of days later I’ll fly from Warsaw to Copenhagen for the alt_cph 2009 where we’re participating with SKUP PALET. Having an ambulatory career is part and parcel of the romantic notion of the artistic life but I don’t feel all that much enthusiasm about it. If I had a car or a boat I guess slow migration wouldn’t be bad, but these shit airlines are so far removed from any romantic ideals that only the movement remains, none of the glamour.

We need to bring back zeppelins or slow trains. There is no dignity to travel today. I don’t think this is me whining about the lack of comfort — remembering that the cheap flights of today were pipe dreams ten years ago — but there’s no fun in just going somewhere. A five day trip would require you to prepare mentally for moving somewhere; You’ll be more fluid and maybe less stuck in one place, paradoxically because travel would be more difficult.

Whatever, I’m just bummed about the reason for the trip. I’ll occupy my time taking pictures of Poland to show folks back home later, as per Wakabas request. Maybe I’ll do a slideshow and commentary. Who would be up for an hours worth of lecture on travel in Poland?

A couple of years ago I was working on a photo series of my extended family; Uncles, cousins and all the extra personnel a family aquires over time. With the omission of a grandfather I got all of them except my maternal grandmother. She was complaining about being too old and ugly to be in a picture, and that she’d rather we remember her by the pictures from back when she was still an imposing matron – with keen eyes and a barking laugh – rather than this old woman of waning health.

I ended up taking a picture of the blanket that would have been the backdrop to her portrait, to make sure that she’d have a place in the finished work.

A couple of years ago she’s still be up and about, occasionally leaving apartment where she’d moved in with her daughter. My mom got her an articulated bed to make getting up easier, but after a while she couldn’t manage that by herself and required full time help.

She’s had arthritis for a long time, and with other illnesses that accompany old age she’d become sickly. The last couple of times my mom came back from visiting Poland, she’s been upset at the amount of pain and suffering that her mother was experiencing, and the inability for anyone to alleviate it.

Grandma died early this morning and we’re looking at ways of getting to the funeral. I haven’t been to Poland for a while, but it’s becoming a bad habit of going for shitty reasons. It’s hard to figure out how to feel about her death; About the unfairness of suffering, of dying and of being left behind, living. There were no things left unsaid nor any promises left hanging, but still there is a void.

She’d talk of her experiences during the second world war, of being imprisoned in a German camp, of losing everything and starting anew in Sanok. She spoke of the house her family used to have, of her time as a hospital nurse, of when lightning struck a pole not ten metres away. If she had any misgivings about her kids or grand-kids it was that none of us had become a lawyer or a doctor – careers worth pursuing and sure signs of intelligence and character – and more than once she’d admonish me for using my talent for arguing on her instead of making a career out of it.

She was tolerant and had an open mind, but took no shit and for as long as she had the faculties of movement she’d pull your ear if you were being stupid. My habit of saying “meh” came from her, but where I might be detached and distant, she had an explosive pronounciation which made it carry so much more meaning. “Bah! Meh! Humbug! Don’t say stupid things!”

Even though she will be missed, I don’t begrudge her a release from the endless suffering she lived with for the past years. No matter how much we’d wish it wasn’t the case, death is sometimes still our only remedy.

This weeks Electronic Explorations is a tour dé force of glitchy dubstep. Slugabed was new to me. The music tires you out quickly if you’re working or doing something that requires concentration, but as far a biking at night is concerned it’s absolutely brilliant – Not to mention its use for “dancing like a god” which I occasionally do.

Listen to it at Electronic Explorations Nr. 82 and subscribe to the podcast while you’re at it.

While on the topic, how about you check out Indian Electronica as well? The podcast hasn’t been updated in a while, but there are 19 episodes to catch up with as a start. And don’t worry your pretty little head, it’s not Goa trance stuff – what kind of a person would I be if I recommended such horrible things?

If you’re more into indie pop, blalocksirp.com releases monthly collections on The Pirate Bay. Most of it is rubbish, but it’ll give you a broader overview than radio, and there are occasional gems in there. Don’t forget that listening to new music will keep your mind fresh and third eye open. (On that note, check out Blip.fm)

The best indie rock mixes currently available in the universe are being served by blalock. You’re welcome.

When Second Life first got started it was lauded as the next step of the Internet – the bridge between 2D browser based networking and the glorious future which was going to be tactile smell-o-rama. With an economy that encouraged in-game innovation and entrepreneurial residents lots of stuff happened. Real money was invested.

In 2006 Warren Ellis got a gig writing Second Life Sketches for Reuters, which were interesting to follow since he’s rather clever and used to fringe culture well enough not to get phased by the bizarre. I wonder if Reuters got what they expected; The articles are no longer available on their server, nor can I find an easy Google cache.

I haven’t logged in for a year but just updated the client because of the video below, found on Boingboing Gadgets. It’s Kool Aid man in Second Life created by Jon Rafman and he’s offering tours of the virtual landscape. It reminds me of a world where a plague has killed off everybody and left only hedonistic crazies, or perhaps Earth after the rapture, with ungodly sinners fucking anything that is interestingly animated.

Look at the landscapes and architecture in the video. Millions of hours worth of user created content exists or has existed in SL, and although the graphics are poor compared to current generation of games, and much of what’s happening is mimicry of “real life,” there’s still something awe-inspiring about the scale and evident passion.

In order to keep the neighbourhood pretty and motivate the costly housing, we’ve had peeping toms on both sides the yard the past weeks. They’re painting and hammering and doing stuff that Real Men® do.

[flv:https://monocultured.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Byggning.flv https://monocultured.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Byggning.png 640 360]

I think it’s time that we can all agree that the news industry is failing. Hundreds of newspapers have declared bankruptcy and gone under in the past couple years — and thousands of Journalists are out of work. But I’m curious: what are all these journalists doing? Laying down and giving up? I’m wondering why I don’t see a flurry of journalistic startups.

→ Warpspire, Kyle Neath: Why aren’t there any journalistic startups?

The Dadaists were very cross. They blamed the horrors of the First World War on the Establishment’s reliance on rational and reasoned thought. They radically opposed rational thought and became nihilistic — the punk rock of modern art movements. Dada plus Sigmund Freud equals Surrealism. The Surrealists were fascinated by the unconscious mind, as that’s where they thought truth resided.

→ Times Online, Will Gompertz: It’s double art history with Mr Tate [Via Sippey]

The notion that lactic acid was bad took hold more than a century ago, said George A. Brooks, a professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. It stuck because it seemed to make so much sense. “It’s one of the classic mistakes in the history of science,” Dr. Brooks said.

Besides dreaming about taking a spaceship boat into the great unknown, another popular escapist fantasy is gardening. Back to the hoe and the illusion of self-sufficiency. Annas brother Andy has gone nuts with the two plots he’s running and generously shares his veggies and thoughts on gardening. Apparently planting in “mixed squares” is what the cool kids are doing these days.

So we’re sitting in a bar, me, Olle and a couple of his friends, when someone starts talking about how there’s this one gardening collective nearby that gives out new plots to people based on who’s there earliest on a particular day. Because we’re drinking beer it seems like an awesome idea to show up on that day and sign up. There’s talk of bringing a tent and camping outside to ensure a good place, and the more beer we have the more enthusiastic we are about the enterprise. We’re gonna grow carrots and beans and flowers and that salad thingy whaddaya callit, oh yeah “chard,” chard is awesome, gotta grow it hey who’s more beer want?

I had already beed offered to share a plot with Anna and Andy a while back, so I can’t really put the finger on why I thought this was a good – or new – idea. Maybe it’s nest building; I own a bed and a laptop, and have nothing but student loans and library cards in my own name. I have no material sense of belonging, so perhaps a 7×7 metre plot of land holds an allure of homesteading? (Technically it wouldn’t be my plot since I’d be sharing it with Olle, but it would be my name on the deed.)

Or maybe it’s the peripheral stuff that appeals to me. Unlike other projects I’ve been enthusiastic about, this one happens to involve someone else which gave it enough momentum to be carried through. The project would in that case obviously be “queue early in the morning” and not “gardening.” Anyway.

Like many ideas that are spawned while merry, this one was blissfully forgotten until I happened upon Sara and she reminded me. It turned out that the signup occasion was just around the corner, so me and Olle decided to spend Friday sober and stand in line before eight on Saturday morning. Waking up early is always painful unless there’s someone with a cup of coffee or a my dick in hand, but I drag myself into a pair of shoes and onto a bike. Olle was standing with a very manly scarf by Röda Sten, scanning the river and trying to come up with a clever remark on my tardiness.

Instead of looking at a map and learning the proper road to get there, we lock our bikes and take the same goat path that Olle had walked on the evening when we first spawned the idea. “Not the fastest way but we’ll get there” is the sentiment which has us struggling up a mountain. We’re walking up the the crags by Röda Sten – where the dub party took place a while back – and at half seven in the morning it makes for unsteady and whining progress.

A small trail leads us through the patch of wood and we emerge onto a parking lot next to a community garden. It’s not the one we’re heading for, but just around the corner there’s another garden and we can see people milling about. Unless they’re the gardening undead, they’re there for the same purpose as we. Someone has posted a bill with numbers, and we pull our tab. It’s not even eight o’clock and there’s already 14 numbers gone before ours; Some have been there half the night and the mood is subdued albeit cheerful.

We settle in, wait for the sun and drink coffee from a thermos. Had me and Olle been gay it would have been romantic; Others are sitting on benches or walking through the different gardens and it’s indeed very pretty. 120 small plots of land are being cultivated in as many ways; From a distance I can only recognise the sunflowers.

One of the guys who’d originally informed us about this event shows up. He’d been there at six, but took off once he had his number secured. He showed us around and I get to eat raw borlotti beans. Someone shows up with a portable beehive and is describing its function to some kids who are delighted and frightened. More and more people come and before you know it it’s ten o’clock and we’re signing our names on a list.

That’s it. There’s no certainty that we’ll get the plot, but I and Olle are now officially #15 on a waiting list, hoping for a call in November or thereabout. I haven’t started in on the seed catalogues yet, but I’ll get there I’m sure.

We saunter back down the hill – Olle would badly sprain his ankle on the same slope a few days later – and I go home to start a productive, although comatose, Saturday. There’s much more to say about the whole nesting thing, and should we get started with growing stuff I’m certain that I’ll be dumping all manner of ambitions here, but until then this post might serve as a reminder of how things get started – not with a great plan but for the hell of it, with a fuzzy idea based on nothing but a hunch.

It just struck me that I’m not the only one who is nourishing make-believe escapist ambitions among my acquaintances; is this an age thing? Is 31 the age at which you want to find meaning in life and feel the dirt beneath your fingernails and whatever? Maybe I just ought to compost myself on the plot and fertilise someone’s produce; I’m sure “corpse potatoes” would fetch a good price on eBay.

Post title from Depressing Comic Week over at Explosm. They’re already famous, but I bet you don’t read it.

So me and Wakaba were discussing the finer points of Family Guy references when she pointed out that the crack I have on my Macbook might be covered by extended warranty. I’d like to think that the gaffers tape I’m using lends my laptop a certain patina – an anti-shine of cool – but called Apple up just to check. Turns out that I qualify for a replacement so what the hell, might as well prolong the life of my beloved companion.

I think that the support drone at Apple had just started working there. He was adorable: Nervous as hell, he was humming under his breath before deciding on which line on his screen to read. There was silence ten seconds at the time and I imagined a guy who frantically is reminding himself “Don’t read the stage notes aloud, don’t read the stage notes aloud!”

He exuded a fear akin to the one you might experience when you’re being asked a question you’re supposed to know the answer to, mumbling something in response that might or not sound like something that maybe possibly is in the vicinity of a vague statement resembling an answer.

— Of course I remember your eye colour, baby; It’s brueen.

He hesitated on every word and only sounded confident reading whole sentences verbatim. “I would like you to know that we have extensive support available on our homepage” was the one time he didn’t finish a sentence with a question mark. Plainly adorable, like a puppy fighting a blanket.

You know that one time that you and a friend showed up for a marathon and realised too late that you’ve signed up for a competition for “special children” but can’t really back out cause you might win the chocolate trophy; Besides you already paid the fee and have running shoes on? Well, Bustler and Archinect ran a Michael Jackson Monument Design competition and the entries are now available for voting on, and they’re of mixed quality.

Some contenders didn’t bother to look up “monument” in the dictionary but lept straight for the lens flare filter, while others did cute conceptual pieces. A few are good: Permanently exploding atom bomb Michael Jackson and Anti-terrorist Golden Statue with Lasers go for the humour. Lift & Slide is the only installation which seems thought through and MJ Sperm Bank is cute, but the rest are mostly photoshops of Michaels feet and the moon.

Go vote for my anti-cancer nano-glove. Let the others get their “You’re also super!” diplomas. I want that chocolate trophy and special groupies.

They scratch their balls, take up your elbowroom and eat crisps with their face halfway down the bag. They keep their knees wide and their coats on should you be tempted to steal the smelly Canada Goose. Their cellphones are never muted and they let it ring instead of denying a call. They look at you over the rim of their Dan Brown novels with blank, unblinking eyes.

I had a perfectly good seat on the train back from Stockholm, but traded with a girl who wanted to sit next to her friend. I should have checked where she was seated before accepting. I spent two hours composing a diatribe against my new neighbours. I went over the top and felt rather judgmental afterwards, but fuck it, I was riding backwards which always makes me want to vomit and sleep at the same time. Minge minge.