Books I read 2002 – 2011

January 10th, 2012, 21:28 | 6 comments

Oh, what the hell… Here’s the full list of books I read in the last 10 years – from 2002 through 2011. Clickable, but not searchable. Enjoy. :)

Category: Culture, English, Personal
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The secret to a happy relationship

May 21st, 2011, 10:29 | No comments

In the movie Annie Hall from 1977, the frustrated main character Alvy (played by Woody Allen) walks down the street and asks strangers how they get their sex life and their relationships to work. The following exchange is just brilliant:

Alvy: You look like a really happy couple… Are you?

Woman: Yeah.

Alvy: So, how do you count for it?

Woman: Uhm… I’m very shallow and empty, and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say.

Man: And I’m exactly the same way.

Category: Culture, English
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Whatever works!

May 17th, 2011, 12:08 | No comments

My life has been devoid of culture lately, as I’ve been quadruple working and having visitors. So in my first free afternoon and evening in a long time, I first biked the Velothon route again, despite I knew it would rain, and then took a hot shower, made some tea and re-watched Whatever Works.

Whatever Works is my absolute favourite among Woody Allen movies, although I haven’t seen his early ones for a while. In recent years, the main character in his movies was always played by some young and famous actor who just couldn’t master the role that Allen so obviously wrote for himself. They just said the words without understanding them. I hated it. Putting Larry David, whom I’m a big fan of since watching all seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, in Woody Allen’s role is just brilliant. He’s the only one so far who can pull it off!

Add a classic Woody Allen script that, as always, deals with existential questions in the ways of light comedy, and you get the ultimate feel-good movie.

In other news, Amazon has just stocked up on Gay Man’s Worst Friend – you can order it here!

Category: Culture, English
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I ♥ Gob Squad (especially Fons!), or: What I did when you saw Lady Gaga in O2 World

April 30th, 2011, 12:57 | 1 comment

 

My visitor is a Swedish stage actor, so through him I’ve encountered some very interesting modern theatre that I would otherwise have missed. When his director heard he was going to Berlin, she said there was only one thing he needed to see, or rather, that he must see: Gob Squad, and their new show Before Your Very Eyes, which is made together with Campo. So we went to the HAU1 theatre yesterday (the premiere was Thursday and the show ends today – all sold out). The copy reads:

Ladies and Gentlemen! Gob Squad proudly present a live show with real children. A rare and magnificent opportunity to witness seven lives lived in fast forward…Before Your Very Eyes!

Live show. Real children. Eine Live-Show mit ECHTEN Kindern! What’s this, a variety show? A cirkus? Well, sort of. There were indeed seven children on stage, caught in a little room with walls of mirrored glass, so that we could see them but they couldn’t see us. Maybe I would call most of the seven actors young adults (they were between 8 and 14), but that’s beside the point. And the point was that this was/isn’t a children’s play. It’s a play for adults, where all the roles are played by children. Where adult words, ideas and objects (cigarettes!) are put in the mouths of children.

And that evokes so many questions. Which is why this is the most brilliant piece I’ve seen on stage in a long time, or, maybe, ever.

That’s a good beginning. The sound of a small heart beating.

Photo by Phile Deprez.

Before Your Very Eyes takes place on so many levels. It’s daring to use children in the same way one can use animals – for the pleasure of adults. Is it ok for us to watch them play? We’re forced to this question. And then there’s the whole pragmatical and symbolical discussion: Is it ok to let a child smoke a cigarette on stage? Is it ok if the cigarette is fake? (Which I don’t know if it was.) Is it ok if they don’t inhale? Or is the whole concept of a child smoking degrading to children in general? Next question: Is it ok for a child to talk about sex in the same way as an adult would? Hm. And what about taking kids out of school and putting them in a touring show like this – can that really be justified, even if they’re having the time of their lives and getting a kick start into acting?

As I said, brilliant. And politically extremely daring.

But brilliant ideas and script only take you that far. In the end, it’s all about delivery; the actors and the director. And this was one of the best acting I’ve ever seen on a Berlin stage. I got my favourite pretty soon – the amazing Fons, whose presence made me shiver – but in the end I was impressed and touched by all of the actors. Not to mention the work the director has done together with them. Again, animal training comes to mind, which of course is the point; what we have here is seven kids delivering wisdoms about life – so convincing, and with such perfect timing that it brought tears to my eyes.

Ladies and Gentlemen – don’t miss the show of the decade!

  • premiere 28 April 2011 at HAU 1, Berlin/ Germany
  • 29 & 30 April at HAU 1, Berlin/ Germany
  • 5 – 7 & 12 – 14 May at CAMPO, Ghent/ Belgium
  • 26 & 27 May at Stamsund Festival, Stamsund/ Norway
  • 2 – 4 June at FFT, Düsseldorf/ Germany
  • 18 – 20 August at NOORDERZON, Groningen/ Netherlands
  • 10 & 11 September at Festival de la Batie, Geneva/ Switzerland
  • 16 & 17 September at Frascati, Amsterdam/ Netherlands
  • 29, 30 September & 1 October at brut, Vienna/ Austria
  • 15 & 16 October at Archa, Prague/ Czech Republic
  • 21 & 22 October at VIE, Modena/ Italy
  • 25 & 26 November at Next Festival, Kortrijk/ Belgium
Category: Culture, English
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Reaktion på Bonintervjun

April 19th, 2011, 8:00 | 1 comment

Helsingborgs Dagblad har recenserat nya Bon. Recensenten Johan Malmberg skriver bland annat:

Den enda text som frångår det småputtrigt självanalyserande (till skaran hör också Jonas Hassen Khemiris samtal med Jonathan Safran Foer) och bränner till är Luis Venegas intervju med Karl Andersson, mannen bakom bögfanzinet Destroyer som konsekvent pryddes av avklädda pojkar. Hans motivering till pojkbilderna är dubiös, men poängen att bilder av väldigt unga flickor inte alls väcker samma reaktioner som pojkbilder är förstås relevant.

Är det här jag ska skriva någon fyndig kommentar till ovanstående citat, så att det så att säga inte blir hängande i luften? Okej, vad sägs om: “Ser man på, det verkar ju nästan som att …” Hm, vad ska jag skriva nu? Det verkar ju nästan som att … Eller kanske en krångligare formulering innehållandes en negation: “Om det inte vore för xxx skulle jag nästan yyy.” Ja, det blir väl bra? Nu gäller det bara att fylla de fina formuleringarna med innehåll, en alltid lika svår uppgift. Eller jag kanske ska inleda med ett tillbakalutat “Man kan notera att …”? Då avslöjar jag liksom inte att jag egentligen blev superglad över att se mitt namn i tidningen, utan jag håller en distanserad och lätt blasé ton. Kanske göra lite Wikipediaresearch och koppla till något som ingen vet vad det är: “Som solipsisterna brukade framhålla: Det är alltid den som …” Ja, vadå? Om jag var en vanlig kille kunde jag skriva “word!” och om jag var en vanlig tjej i Bagarmossen kunde jag skriva “hepp!”. Men nu är jag ju en bög i Berlin. Jag kanske borde skriva något bitchigt? Så där bögigt liksom, fast ändå med en intellektuell touch? Typ: “Jag säger som Golda Meir: If it ain’t xxx it ain’t yyy.” Kanske pilla in ett “honey” också. Det blir väl en härlig slutkläm? Jajaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Category: Culture, Personal, Swedish
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Takeshi Kitano-vecka på Silver

April 4th, 2011, 11:27 | No comments

Jag fick ett pressutskick från filmkanalen Silver. Enbart detta är anmärkningsvärt, att jag numera får pressutskick om japansk film. Vad kan man säga annat än – jippi! Silver skriver:

Den 8 april 2011 har Outrage, Takeshi Kitanos stora comeback till maffiagenren, premiär på svenska biografer. Med anledning av detta passar filmkanalen Silver på att hylla den japanska mästerregissörens mångfald genom att visa tre mycket olika Kitano-filmer som uppladdning i premiärveckan. Drama, action och det fullkomligt absurda väntar Silvers tittare under vecka 14.

Och filmerna som visas är:

  • Achilles and the Tortoise (bilden) – Måndag 4 april klockan 23.00
  • Zatochi – Tisdag 5 april klockan 23.00
  • Glory to the Filmmaker! – Onsdag 6 april klockan 23.00

Ta chansen och se en av Japans mer egensinniga regissörer. Silver finns “hos operatörerna Boxer, Comhem, Canal Digital, Telia, Tele2 med flera, samt som mobil tv-kanal hos 3″.

Jag har sett två Takeshifilmer tidigare.

Category: Culture, Swedish
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Bon interview with me

February 28th, 2011, 12:58 | 1 comment

I’m interviewed by Luis Venegas in the spring issue of Bon Magazine, both the international and the Swedish edition. Here are some photos from the Swedish one. Available at Pressbyrån!

Category: Culture, English, Personal
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When will Tokyopop release Loveless volume 9?

February 1st, 2011, 11:52 | 11 comments

I just finished Loveless volume 7, the English translation of the Japanese manga. Even if it felt a bit like a “transport” volume, I still liked it more than volume 6, which was more of a “background” volume. I already own volume 8, but I don’t look forward to the black hole of loss that I fear might open up beyond it. Because there is still no sight of volume 9 in English. Look at this timeline:

What are you doing, Tokyopop? It’s been well over a year since the Japanese volume came out, and the English translations always used to precede the German and French ones.

A user writes at the Tokyopop Loveless page:

So why do other countries get volume 9 of Loveless but we’re left hanging without so much as a word about it being released into English? Don’t add this to the ever growing long lists of series that have canceled due to ‘issues’. I’m forever being let down by this company, why pick up heaps more contracts when there are so many that have yet to be fulfilled? Tokyopop is a joke.

Is Tokyopop having an issue? I hope not!

Loveless was the first anime and manga I seriously watched/read, and subsequently fell in love with, in 2004 or 2005. I don’t remember how I discovered it, but I’m happy I did.

Wait a minute. Does this mean I’m supposed to read volume 9 in Japanese? God, you’re so hard on me!

Category: Culture, English, Japan
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My epiphany with Yotsuba-to!

January 23rd, 2011, 14:28 | 20 comments

This was supposed to be a post about practicing your Japanese by reading Yotsuba-to! (よつばと!), a popular manga which according to this post is ideal for Japanese learners, partly because of the furigana (small hiragana letters printed next to the kanji characters, thus revealing how the kanji should be read).

I managed to find the comic both raw (meaning in Japanese) and translated into English. I’m reading them on my computer and keep the window with the English version under the raw one. It’s perfect to have a key handy!

(And don’t worry, Yotsuba-to! publisher, I will probably buy the print versions eventually, just like I did with all volumes of Loveless after having discovered the manga through filesharing. Or some merchandise.)

However, something happened as I started to read. I suddenly found myself staring at the frames at the top of this post for a long time.

First I realised that they are slightly different; they added some details on the right frame, or took them away on the left one.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that this difference made me realise just what an art it is to reduce as much as possible from a picture without losing its expression. Yes, the art of reduction! The left frame is even more expressive than the right one – you can really see that little enthusiastic girl in front of you!

So this is how you should read manga. This is their allure. Manga readers don’t see cartoons – they see real characters, created with the help of lines that the manga readers’ brains know how to parse just in the same way as the novel reader’s brain knows how to parse words and sentences expressing the same thing. It’s really just the same! And the step to expressing something with a picture instead of with words is of course smaller in Japan, since kanji actually linger somewhere in between text and drawings. After all, kanji is nothing but very reduced pictures.

This made me think of Donald Richie’s Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics. Yotsuba-to! is a perfect example of the Japanese aversion to our Western mimesis, and of the Japanese “tendency to value symbolic representation over realistic delineation,” as Richie puts it. What an art!

This might be obvious to all of you, but I actually haven’t read that many manga, except Loveless. This was my epiphany, and I will always remember it. The moment when I fell through the paper and into the manga.

Category: Culture, English, Japan, Personal
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Pornography – a thriller

January 6th, 2011, 13:28 | No comments

I watched Pornography – a thriller the other day and wasn’t impressed:

A half-measure, unfortunately

The first half of the film is pretty exciting, let be a bit cheesy, but that’s part of the genre. Then it just gets weird in a “it was just a dream – or was it?” kind of way. Boring.

I got the impression the writer didn’t believe in his own script, thinking the basic story was too over the top to make it on its own. So he made a twist to save face as a serious movie-maker. Or something like that.

Sorry to be so negative about it, but just like another reviewer pointed out, this movie could have been so good with so little extra work done to it.

Technically it was well done, the acting/directing is okay too, I really just object to the script.

One can add that the scriptwriter and the director is the same person. Whenever this is the case, I get the feeling that it’s a good director who also wants to write the script – not the other way around. Scriptwriters are underrated.

Category: Culture, English
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