Här kan du köpa Bögarnas värsta vän!

October 28th, 2010, 22:56 | 3 comments

Nu kan du köpa Bögarnas värsta vän – historien om tidningen Destroyer på Ilovemags.

Glöm inte att skriva i kommentarsfältet när du checkar ut ifall du vill ha boken signerad.

(The book about Destroyer is now for sale at Ilovemags. It ships worldwide, but please note that the book is in Swedish. The English translation is scheduled for early 2011.)

Svenska Dagbladet: “Bögarnas värste vän är tillbaka”

Aftonbladet: “Det är en spännande samtidshistoria som berättas, som handlar om ett dagligt slit, om utsatthet, om uppkäftighet.”

Category: Swedish
Tags: , ,

Nu släpps Bögarnas värsta vän!

October 19th, 2010, 10:57 | 9 comments

Nu släpps “Bögarnas värsta vän – historien om tidningen Destroyer” av Karl Andersson.

Välkommen på releasemingel onsdag 27 oktober kl 18-22 på galleri Pony Sugar, Gotlandsgatan 67 i Stockholm.

Uppdatering: Klockan 20.00 samtalar konstnären och galleristen Snövit Mina Hedstierna med Karl Andersson om boken. (Tidigare stod det 19.30, men 20.00 är alltså den rätta tiden!)

Lite bakgrundsinformation:

Destroyer var gaytidningen som blev fördömd av ett enat Gaysverige på grund av de unga manliga modellerna. RFSL kallade den “gubbsnusk”, Stockholm Pride vägrade sälja den och SVT:s program Böglobbyn utnämnde Karl Andersson till “bögarnas värsta vän”.

Tidningen kom ut med 10 nummer under fyra år och är nu ett avslutat projekt. Boken sammanfattar alla de reaktioner som den orsakade, bland såväl bögar som homofober. Reaktioner som är intressanta, fascinerande och ofta – tyvärr – ganska spektakulära. Boken handlar om Destroyer, men lika mycket om dagens gayrörelse.

På festen kommer du att kunna köpa boken till kraftigt reducerat pris – så långt lagret räcker (vi bor i Berlin och kommer ta med oss så många böcker vi kan på flyget). Den går också att köpa hos till exempel Adlibris, Bokus och Bokia, liksom på Ilovemags, där även restnummer av Destroyer säljs.

Naturligtvis bjuder vi också på vin och musik.

Uppdatering: Jan Göransson från SFI och Snövit kommer att stå för skivvändandet.

Varmt välkommen!

Category: Culture, Swedish
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Two months of Japanese studies

October 18th, 2010, 20:00 | 1 comment

Yes, it’s the 18th again, my Japanese birthday since it was on August 18th, 2010, that I began to study Japanese. So I’m turning 2 months today – happy birthday, Karl-san! :) (One month post here.)

I thought I’d introduce you to a language learning community today. It’s called Lang-8 and is a great place for everyone who is learning a language.

The idea of Lang-8:

  1. You write texts in the language that you study, and your texts are corrected by people who have that language as their mother tongue.
  2. You correct texts that other users have written in your mother tongue.

It’s such a brilliant idea. Incidentally, I had it myself back in 2002, when I sketched the outlines of a site I called Teach Me – peer 2 peer language studies:

Språkstudier peer-2-peer! En webbplats där man registrerar sig. Vilka språk kan man, vill man lära ut eller lära sig? Osv. Grundidén är att webbplatsen ska funka precis som de lappar som sitter på universitet runt om i världen: ”Jag är portugis. Om du lär mig tjeckiska så lär jag dig portugisiska.” Detta fantastiska utbyte av kunskaper som båda vinner på. Men problemet har varit för dessa människor att hitta varandra. Internet har hjälpt folk i en mängd andra situationer och fört samman personer med samma intresse osv. Men något sådant här finns ännu inte. Det vet jag eftersom jag i så fall hade varit reggad direkt!

I’m so happy to see the idea up and working, pretty much as I pictured it. Though, I must admit, I had an additional centralized (= expensive) twist to it.

I’m sure there are more communities like this one, but Lang-8 is perfect for me since it has plenty of Japanese users. But there are also plenty of Swedish journal entries for me to correct. I love it!

If you’re interested, read my Japanese journal. And start your own in the language you are studying. If it’s Swedish, make me your friend and I’ll look forward to tutor you!

And here’s the guy from Tofugu.com who showed me Lang-8:

I look forward to exploring the rest of his list, but as I’ve pointed out before: Don’t underestimate the hours you spend with your text book! So I’m getting back to that one now, to finish lesson 2 in Japanese From Zero 3. さようなら!

Category: English, Japan, Japanese
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Another Internet-free day

October 17th, 2010, 14:26 | No comments

It was rainy and I was hungover, so I spent the day mostly at home, studying Japanese (lesson 2 in book 3 of Japanese From Zero) and reading in Donald Richie’s The Japan Journals. Richie just might be my next literary discovery, along with … well, let’s get back to that later.

Then I roamed the streets of Neukölln in a Chrysler 300 with my friend P, who describes himself as a “slave of capitalism”.

After Meyman dinner with P and his friend, I got home to watch my fourth Ozu movie and an episode of Cheers season 5. (Yes, I awoke my computer to watch the videos, but I detached the network cable first. I’m such a good boy.)

Then even more Japanese studies, this time from Let’s Learn Kanji, which has given me a better first impression than Japanese From Zero did. A review will follow when I’ve started out with it for real.

Yeah, it was a good Internet-free day! (Read about my first IFD here.)

Category: English, Japan, Personal
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A short review of Japanese From Zero 1 + 2

October 12th, 2010, 11:26 | 4 comments

Yesterday I finished book 2 of Japanese From Zero, which is my main means of learning Japanese. I thought it would be a good time for a short evaluation.

Japanese has three ways of writing: The syllabaries hiragana and katakana (together called kana), and ideographs from Chinese characters, kalled kanji. In Japanese From Zero 1, you learn hiragana. Level 2 teaches katakana, and at level 3 they start teaching kanji, which I really look forward to.

In short, I liked this with Japanese From Zero:

  • You really learn Japanese from zero – no prior knowledge at all required. And yet you learn how to read and write Japanese. Some other books either anticipate you already know the syllabaries, or focus only on talking. Japanese From Zero was just the level I wanted.
  • All lessons have the same structure: They begin with new grammar and vocabulary, in the middle the new kana is introduced, and in the end you practice your new knowledge in a set of grammar and vocabulary drills. This is as close you can come to a classroom lesson, and I liked that.
  • The grammar is pedagogically explained – it’s easy to understand.
  • The “progressive” method (see below) of learning kana apparently works.
  • The books are pretty “nice” in style; personal rather than dry.

And disliked this:

  • Since I’ve studied languages at university level, I prefer a more academic approach. Japanese From Zero is not totally layman, but it’s somewhere in between. (The authors are an American interpreter and his Japanese wife, without degrees I suppose, or else they would probably mention them.) Most people would probably appreciate this, but I can’t help thinking: What is it that you don’t tell me because you think I can’t take it?
  • The strange vocabulary selection. In one of the first chapters we learned words like “body fluid” and “high blood pressure”. (Words that I have, as opposed to “dog”, “meal”, “storm” etc, now forgotten.) There is also an American bias; you learn how to write Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and so on, in katakana. Good for Americans…
  • The typos. One typo in a language learning book is one too many. But these books are full of them – as confirmed by my Japanese tutor, and also as pointed out by many Amazon reviewers. That’s a real scar and makes me think of the Japanese From Zero series as an unpolished diamond. It could have been so good, but the typos are a serious nag. The authors should really take a day or two per book to give them a real proofreading!

The “progressive” method of learning kana means this: You learn a set of syllables in each chapter. Once you’ve learned them, those syllables will be written in kana instead of with roman letters. I was irritated by this method at first, because I learned all hiragana in the first days through a training site. Despite this, I think it’s a good idea to learn the syllabaries peu à peu like that. It makes the characters stick, and you learn to draw them the right way. It also made me want to finish these books quickly, since I was eager to read the Japanese without the annoying roman letters, which really look ugly in the middle of a kana word.

Yes, it’s hard to get some flow when reading kana. It’s tempting to read the words in rōmaji (as it’s called when roman letters are used), because it’s so much easier. But the way I see it, you must force yourself to read all Japanese in kana as soon as possible. Only that way will those characters become more natural to you. I think I’m well on my way. I’ve already developed a kind of rōmaji aversion, meaning it’s irritating to repeat older chapters in the books, where the kana is mixed up with rōmaji.

The books are thick (about 300 pages each), square and printed, probably digitally, on very white paper. I think that format works great. And I just love it when it’s time to order the next level book – I like sticking to one series.

Japanese From Zero is a part of YesJapan.com, a pay site with lots of Japanese learning videos, games, as well as the book lessons. I haven’t tried it. I’ve bought the first three books for about 20 euro each in less than 2 months, and I must admit it almost feels a bit strange not to gain access to the site after such a loyal spending spree. Each book could for example come with one month’s free membership. (The first book took me 3 weeks, the second 4.)

Anyway, there are lots of free and smart p2p resources for language learning out there. I will come back to them in a later post.

I didn’t do much research before I ordered Japanese From Zero. I chose it because of its title – my Japanese knowledge really was zero – and the fact that it was a series with which I could continue after I had left zero.

On that subject: It’s always tempting to do lots of research when you learn a language (or anything else), but those who spend hours finding the right means of learning have missed an important fact: It’s not the means that is most important. It’s you. And your devotion. So I try to keep away from the web searching for different strategies to learn Japanese, and just focus on my book. It’s the hours you spend with it that matter, not which book you use.

Category: English, Japan
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Candy 2

October 10th, 2010, 16:14 | No comments

I’m immensely impressed by Luis Venegas, the guy behind the “magateen” Electric Youth (EY) and the new magazine Candy. He got Ash Stymest on the cover of EY, and now he’s got James Franco in drag for Candy!

Watch the trailer. Names, names, names! I must admit I even like Candy more than EY. Keep it up, Luis!

Category: Culture, English
Tags: , , ,

にほんごの べんきょう

October 9th, 2010, 17:49 | No comments

きょう、ともだちと コーヒーを のみました。

きょうは あついから、こえんに いきます。

しちじに ともだちは ふたり わたしの いえに きます。

ばんごはんを たべます。

Category: Japanese, Personal

Bögarnas värsta vän – historien om tidningen Destroyer

October 7th, 2010, 23:52 | 6 comments

Så här ser den ut, boken om Destroyer! I den har jag sammanfattat alla de reaktioner som tidningen väckte, från gayvärlden såväl som från nynazister, barnombudsmannen och allt däremellan.

Jag berättar också varför jag startade tidningen, i vilka länder den sålde mest och en massa annat Destroyerrelaterat. Och så har jag kryddat med rapporter från polisförhör och diverse nattliga äventyr.

Upplagan är endast 500 ex.

Uppdatering: Boken går att köpa här eller på t ex Adlibris.

Med det här inlägget vill jag bjuda in dig:

Onsdagen den 27 oktober 2010 mellan klockan 18 och 22 är Du välkommen på releasefest på galleri Pony Sugar, Gotlandsgatan 67 i Stockholm.

Jag hoppas vi ses där!

PS: Jo, jag har tillfälligt gått med i Facebook igen för att kunna skapa ett event där.

Category: Culture, Personal, Politics, Swedish
Tags: , ,


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