Grim Reaper

He walks around the world, and to him neither money nor fame makes any difference. When the time has come, he collects us and brings us to the next world, to Valhalla, to paradise, to eternity, our next life or wherever we hope he’ll be taking us.

The only thing we can be really sure of is that he’ll come for us one day, that he’s not interested in negotiations whatever filmmakers like to think, and that he knows exactly what he’s doing. After all, he’s been doing it for quite a while now.

On love

Just a few tables away from where I'm sitting. He's so much in love, he smiles at her, at everyone around, at the potted flowers, he’s just so full of smiles. I can see the stars flying around him, I can literally see them flying from his twinkling eyes to her.

There are no stars around her, and the smiles seem forced. When he leans forwards she leans backwards, when he leans backwards she relaxes. It’s like they are choreographed, but not together.

His stars brighten the entire restaurant, but when he gets up to leave the kiss lands on her cheek. He’s still smiling, strokes her hair and goes away, no dances away. He waves from the entrance and is gone. With him all the stars left.

She picks up her phone, dials a number. Her voice sounds tired and a little flat.

I fear this story ends with one heart broken. Perhaps even two.

The Starfish Story

The Starfish Story
adapted from The Star Thrower
by Loren Eiseley (1907 - 1977)

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."


This story has appeared all over the web in various forms, usually with no credit given to Mr. Eiseley. Sometimes it is a little girl throwing the starfish into the ocean, sometimes a young man, once even an elderly Indian. In any form it is a beautiful story and one that makes you think.

Loren Eiseley was a anthropologist who wrote extensively. He was the 'wise man' in the story, and he was walking along a beach after a storm and encountered the fellow throwing the starfish back. I have not had a chance to read the original book yet myself but will post more background info here after I do.

Thanks to Dave Navarro for sharing the link.

A dinner party

When I invite people over for dinner I do it because I wish to spend an evening with those people. Because they are nice, and I enjoy sharing my meal with nice people. Simple as that. If some of the guests have allergies, are vegetarians or vegans or for cultural reasons avoid some food I try my best to cook something that everybody can eat, or make a buffet where there’s something for everybody. It’s no trouble, it’s part of the pleasure.

Others see it differently. I called somebody just a few minutes ago to inform the cooking person about that a few of us are vegetarians. Turns out this is very rude, we’re causing the cook all sorts of trouble with this. The special meal that was planned, the fantastic meat and the sauce to go with it, are we really rejecting that?

Well, yes, when you put it like that I guess we are. Sorry. We can bring food for ourselves, if you like. Or would you rather we didn’t come this time?

*deep sigh* nonono, I’ll manage. I don’t really know anything about vegetarian food but… *one more deep sigh*

I feel so welcome to this dinner party now (<--- well hidden sarcasm)

How to win

First they ignore you.
Then they ridicule you.
They they fight you.
Then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi

from Nima

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose

I miss you so much!

The artist and the Internet

This was originally posted in Swedish, but since I was inspired by and am using quite a lot of the words of somebody who does not, to my knowledge, read Swedish I've decided to translate it and post it again:

The relationship between artist and fan is changing if you haven't noticed, along with the way we consume and experience music and even communicate since the internet arrived.

In the forum on the NIN homepage Trent Reznor, the voice of Nine Inch Nail, talks amongst other things about how the cultural landscape have changed, and still is changing today:

It's been an interesting experiment over the last couple of years or so. Faced with leaving the infrastructure of traditional record labels and figuring out what the right thing to do is in this new world - I found myself realizing that for me to have any concept of how to interact with the community and know what they might want / what they find appropriate, I need to immerse myself in that world and live it for a while.
The reason no record label knows how to market anything to new media is they don't live there. They don't get it because they don't use it. What you've seen happen with the marketing and presentation of NIN over the last years is a direct result of living next to you, listening to you, consuming with you and interacting with you. Directly. There's no handlers or PR people here, it's me and my guys - that's it. There's no real plan, even - it's just trying to do the right thing that respects you the fan, the music, and me the artist. That's the goal - a mutual and shared respect.

Not everybody chooses to follow the same path but it is my belief that the path chosen by NIN and many others is wisely chosen. It's better on so many levels to participate in this new thing, be a part of it and dealing with it from experience and insight rather than desperately hanging on to what no longer is, or even allowing some of all these self proclaimed experts or gurus take command.

Of course there's a price to pay for the intimacy this sort of interacting brings. The world is a huge place and here be all kinds of people, including the ones who may not always be able to grasp the concept of perspective. Reznor tells about people who are unable to fully distinguis between reality and imagination, about people who express anger and hateful feelings due to the fact that he's not the same man today as he was in 1994, and about people who attack the fact that he's in a relation and his girlfriend. Yet, he forgrounds, even if they are both intrusive and stubborn, and sometimes threatening and scary, the only a few of them.

Reznor with NIN, like many artists, writers, musicians etc have chosen to be part of the new social arena. They choose to communicate directly with fans all over the world and generously share both time and other things with their fans. They are rewarded with loyalty, attention and their works, records, books etc, are sold and bring pleasure to many. The artist who chooses to stay out of the arena may achieve some fame as a hermite but accepts the risk of ending up out in the cold, forgotten. Choosing between works from somebody who's generously shared his or her thoughts along the process, replied to questions etc, or the works by somebody one's never heard of most of is would choose the first one.

The world is not out of joint, it has changed. Artists have nothing to loose in getting of the high horses they cannot handle and instead follow in the path of Reznor and many others. It's not that dangerous, and it's worth it.

Stars aligning

Neil Gaiman says on Twitter: I'll be at the Edinburgh bookfest: 19th Aug as kid's author, 20th interviewed by Ian Rankin. Tickets onsale mon 22nd jun

Can I explain how HUGE this is to me? Two of my absolute favourite authors in the world in my favourite city!

Now, how to get there?

a Lovesong For the Internet

I love the Internet. Through it I meet so many wonderful, fantastic, generous, wise, fabulous individuals from all over the world. Sometimes they even send me guitar picks. Today the actual Pick of Destiny arrived in my mailbox, too cool! Thank you, dear friend!

I love the Internet. I honestly believe that all the communication between different people that goes on all the time is the way to peace.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

Graduation day

So it's over, graduation day has come and gone, and the classes are no more. This is by far the proudest and saddest day of the year in a teacher's life. Those who, only this morning, were still our students have now moved on and are walking paths that will lead them far away from us. I hope they remember to listen to the wind that whispers to them that they'll always have a home at Hvilan.

My class gave me the most beautiful gift one could imagine: a photoalbum with photos of them all, showing their year at Hvilan from their perspective. Thank you!

Manipulative

I am being manipulated. It’s not done with any great level of finesse and is rather obvious. Yet I allow it to happen, I even encourage it to some degree, and I pretend I do not notice.

Does this make me a manipulator too?

My purpose for this deceitful act is simple enough – I’m trying to draw a bit of flak to myself, away from somebody who does not deserve the flak flying his or her way, and is less well equipped to handle it than me. If it works, and neither of the persons involved notice what’s going on, there might be lots to gain for us all.

Thus, I am being manipulated at the moment.

Communicative confusion

Communication is so much more than just the words we use. It’s so much more than body language. It’s so much more than tone and intonation, what we say and what we don’t say.

We did use the exact same words, you see. We used roughly the same body language, which is rare enough in itself. We even looked at each other and nodded in agreement. For a very long time I have been thinking that we did say the same thing.

But then there’s the aspect of culture, of tradition. I forgot about that. No, I’m not being honest. I did remember that, but I didn’t think it was an issue here. I thought, for a long time, that we belonged to the same culture in this perspective.

It turns out, I realised today, that was a huge mistake. While using the same words, on the same occasion, talking about the same thing, we were actually saying opposite things, without knowing it. While I intended to communicate ‘I’m not interested, thanks anyway’ she was intending to communicate ‘I would really like this, please ask me directly!’ And everybody thought she was saying the same thing I was.

On one level this is really cool. On another it’s really sad. On a third is horribly frustrating.

There’s also an important lesson for me here: do not take for granted that just because a person is using the same words you are he/she means the same thing.