My Blog

Arnold Böcklin’s masterpiece (my most liked of his five versions), from 1880. The oars of Charon meet the waters of the river Styx. Curiously, the end of August Strindbergs’ play The Ghost Sonata, one of the 20th century greatest plays, consists of this same image. It was one of Strindbergs’ favorite pictures, it is said.

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than
too late.

(Charles Bukowski)

“I varje blomma bor en annan blomma. Ett svagt
doftande sorgsmycke. Obegripligt mitt i det mörka
guldet. I varje blomma kan man ännu urskilja det
nedlagda mönstret. Parvingar med hårrörsfina
gudskärl. Barnögon i den tunna väven. Där afton-
rodnaden sin rosenmantel sänker. Istappar korsar
stjälkarna. De höga klibbiga stjälkarna. Under
hjärtats förhud. Allt är meningslöst. Fanfarer
klingar i den trötta bröstväven. Sakta klirrande
som fingerglas. Det är en ros så skön dess blad
är som fanfaren.”

(av Ann Jäderlund)

Yes, I am a Fonero now. And no, I didn’t go berserk. I received my equipment beginning of this week and it is now operational, meaning I am a fully fledged member of the Fon movement, the world’s largest WiFi community.

In practice this means that I share my wireless Internet access, and, in return, enjoy free WiFi wherever there is another Fonero’s access point. It’s called being a Linus. I could have gone other way, and collect half of what aliens pay to access the Net using my equipment. But the hippie in me doesn’t let me do that. Peace and love, man!

“One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”

(Wallace Stevens, from Harmonium, 1923)

“Alas,” said the mouse, “the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into.”
“You only need to change your direction,” said the cat, and ate it up.

(A Little Fable, Franz Kafka)

It saddens me how few appreciate how funny Kafka was. Contrary to what may seem on the surface, his humor is everything but neurotic: it is sane and courageous, courageous against all odds. And unlike modern attempts at comedy, with their sexual overtones and attack on conventions, Kafka’s humor is subtle and mocks no one. 

At times he may sound grotesque, with his unique brand of dark gallows humor thrown in, but it is all within the spirit of the central joke in his work – establishing our human self is a terrible struggle that results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that same terrible struggle.

As Kafka once stated, and, I dare to envision, bearing a smirk on his face – “There is hope, but not for us”. Priceless.

Get a First Life, and only then a Second. You can’t go wrong with the ability to “fornicate using your actual genitals”, right? Then again …

This is a panoramic photo taken from my “new” office in a central area of Gothenburg. If you click on it you can download the high resolution version and zoom in on the details. It is a tad on the big side as far as image downloads go, so be prepared to wait.

The keener observers among you may notice you can’t spot a single construction crane on sight. Feast your eyes on it. We may be observing one of the last few holdouts of planned economy on the Western world. No wonder it is so hard to find a single good apartment in this city. If you are lucky enough to track one that pleases you, you then must outbid several other candidates in a process just begging to be abused by the less honorable. Prices are outrageous. And I am not even talking about buying new.

What a crock!!!

This photograph was sent home by the Voyager I probe on the 6th of June of 1990. It was taken four billion miles away. That’s a bit over six billion kilometers for us Europeans. And that circled dot? Earth, our planet.

Of it Carl Sagan once wrote:

“That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ’superstar,’ every ’supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.“

N.B. Porque o passado marca

“Abre os olhos e encara a vida! A sina
Tem que cumprir-se! Alarga os horizontes!
Por sobre lamaçais alteia pontes
Com tuas mãos preciosas de menina.

Nessa estrada de vida que fascina
Caminha sempre em frente, além dos montes!
Morde os frutos a rir! Bebe nas fontes!
Beija aqueles que a sorte te destina!

Trata por tu a mais longínqua estrela,
Escava com as mãos a própria cova
E depois, a sorrir, deita-te nela!

Que as mãos da terra façam, com amor,
Da graça do teu corpo, esguia e nova,
Surgir à luz a haste de uma flor!…”

Florbela Espanca, Charneca em Flor (1930)