what matters?

one of my all-time favorite novels is high fidelity by nick hornby. the movie is also awesome. i love the novel for several reasons.

first of all i really like the language, and the tone of it. the flow of it is fantastic. you're really there, you can see the racks of records you want to go through so badly, and the awkwardness gets under your skin.

second of all, i really dig the characters. they are really real, like it says on the back of the penguin edition "oh god, i know people just like that!", we really do. rob becomes your best buddy, or worst, and you fall in love with him, or with dick. barry is.. well, he's jack black, essentially, which is one reason the movie version works so well.

third, it really appeals to the geek in me; top ten lists, obscure musical facts, pop-cultural references, anal filing systems, obsessive behavior, the focus on mixed tapes.

at one place in the book (p.91) rob ponders on something he's been talking to the others about in relation to his underlying women problem, namely what really matters, what you like or what you are like, and says that

"..the truth was that these things matter, and it's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party."

those of you who's read the book or watched the movie knows what it eventually resolves to, but whatever that is i still think this is an interesting dilemma, cos even though it's superficial and even mis-guiding to judge people on what they like, it does, after all, matter. at least to me. certainly not as much as it does to barry with his questionnaire, but still.

however, there are morons with impeccable taste, just like there are awesome persons without taste (i call them radio listeners). i think it matters what people are like, but generally i do prefer them to have good taste.

that's what i think. what do you think? i put the poll to the right up just to find out, so please click it. thanks.

oh, and for the love of god, if you haven't read the book, make sure you do that first, but fast, you only have a week before my poll closes.

kevin is teasing us

i love kevin smith. i think he's one of the funniest people alive. i love his movies, or flicks as he calls them. i force them on everyone i know - not too seldom with a positive result mind you. he writes great characters and awesome dialogue. if i had to pick one thing about them that's better than anything it would be the dialogue. they're also incredibly nerdy and sweet. and foul of course.

people usually say that clerks is their favorite (makes sense; back to the roots and all), but i'd say mallrats. casting jason lee as brodie must be one of the best thing he's ever done. what an obnoxious character and how perfectly portrayed! there are so many things i love about that movie it's too vast to list.

the reason for this sudden expression of love is that his new film zack and miri make a porno is coming out this year and he's just put a teaser (not a trailer) up. enjoy! (don't worry, there's no porn in it, just a lot of talk about sex.)

[updated: damn. the embedding first seemed to work just fine and then didn't. click here to see the teaser.]

oh, and yeah, kevin's one more thing i love about the 90s. so if you haven't seen any of kevin's movies yet, DO IT NOW! your life will never be the same. :)

angels

this video makes me cry.



(it's sigur rós "svefn-g-englar")

sun anyone?

i'm not feeling too funky, so no real interest in writing anything. except maybe that i've become cynical and even more sarcastic since watching a season and a half of house md. for the last week or two. and that this time of year is the worst for teachers. especially the ones that grade. who wants summer vacation?!

juliana has updated with two more songs

10. fleur de lys
11. hole in the sky

bad day

a new blog post from lovely juliana today! this time about one of my favorite song of her's, so i'll only leave you with this link here so i can get to it myself. enjoy!

9. bad day

sweet vaccation

Copenhagen To London Stansted
flight 3468; dep. Sat 21 Jun 21:35
arr. Sat 21 Jun 22:25

From London (Stansted) (STN) to Montpellier (MPL)
Sun, 22Jun08 Flight FR 632 Depart STN at 06:05 and arrive MPL at 09:00

insert the mediterranean sea, sun, wine, cheese and all things french (almost)!

From Montpellier (MPL) to London (Stansted) (STN)
Sat, 05Jul08 Flight FR 633 Depart MPL at 09:25 and arrive STN at 10:25

London Stansted To Copenhagen
flight 3467; dep. Sat 05 Jul 18:25
arr. Sat 05 Jul 21:10

head on

man! do i want this badge. gimme!

delay

oh, and juliana's new album is postponed.. her blog stated

Juliana's new record, How To Walk Away, will now be released on August 19th. The date has been pushed back due to unexpected staff changes at Ye Olde Records.

i want it now!

you are the camera

my forever favorite musician juliana hatfield is blogging on her myspace page. i hope you know about this already, but if you didn't, she's blogging about her songs; what they mean and what she think about them now and this and that. it's interesting! and, i suppose, a way to get to know her a little better. so go read it!

for convenience, this is what she's posted about so far:

1. the introduction piece
2. you are the camera
3. make it home
4. simplicity is beautiful
5. mabel
6. sunshine
7. hotels
8. choose drugs
   

now i'm off to read the last one myself. enjoy!

gimme indie rock

sebadoh from the gig at kb yesterday. it was an alright gig. i had hoped for more hits - considering it's a somewhat of a reunion tour and all - but they obviously wanted to be more obscure than that. fine by me, i still had a good time :)

calamity physics

i take it you've all heard the expression that goes something like "if you're gonna read one book this year, let it be this one". (my memory is a bit fuzzy here i admit.)

well. that book should be special topics in calamity physics (2006) by marisha pessl.

i just finished reading it and i can honestly say i've never read anything like it. it may not be the best book i've ever read, but it's certainly one of the most special books i've ever read. it had me at the first couple of pages and i just had to have more, right till the end. the characters and the plot - but also the language, her fantastic use of it - has been in my head 24-7 for the week it took to get through the 515 pages and i have no doubts as to them staying there a bit longer. i'm not quite ready to write a review yet, i'm still in a phase where i just want to throw adjectives at it. like fascinating. interesting. thrilling. heart-breaking. devouring. beautiful.

you get the idea. i'll try to gather my thoughts soon enough. here's some kind of official site i haven't quite figured out yet, and here's what some others thought of it.

on blogging

if i had a faq (which i obviously don't) the first question on it would ultimately be why i blog; to which i have no real answer. but! to question number two, i do! i thought i would share that with you. so;

2.
q: why do you blog in english, when you're a native swedish speaking person?

a: there are really two reasons to why i blog in english. the first is that since i have friends outside of sweden who doesn't speak swedish it's easier to just do it in english, cos everybody speaks english.

the second reason goes a few years back. when i started studying english at the university (as part of my teaching education) i almost at once felt i had to practice my writing in english and figured blogging would be a good way to do that. so i started my old blog - which is now shut down for several reasons, one being the content of it was a whole lot more personal than this one and i really wouldn't want any of my pupils finding it - and maintained it for about two and a half years, about a year longer than i studied. in retrospect i think it was a good thing i did it cos it did help me with my writing. just writing essays and reviews and stuff we did in the different courses is hard when you're not used to using a language that way. granted, i've studied english all through school since i was 10 (like everybody else) and have been reading mainly english and american literature since i was about 18, but writing is different. or, at least to me it was.

during that time i guess i just got used to writing in english, cos once i'd shut the old blog down i felt i needed to create a new one. i've also found it convenient keeping a blog to entertain my language skills, cos being out of college and nearly only speaking english to 9th graders has a damaging effect on them.

why i loved the 90s pt 2

i love this video - dirty boots by sonic youth - cos it has everything. awesome music, teenage love, 90s (anti-)fashion, live concert, boys with long hair. it just goes to show that wearing way too big a band t-shirts and having sloppy hair - that's so obvious in my teenage photos - was right on the money! it may not seem all that pretty through today's eyes, but it was then.

as it were, my parents didn't want to pay for extra tv channels back then so i only ever watched mtv at my friend's, but i did record a few 120 minutes and guide to alternative music (with toby!) and i watched them over and over at home. this video was on one of them so i must have seen it a hundred times. i fell in love with it from the beginning and as it usually is with sonic youth; there is no falling out of love with them.

enjoy.

battlestar fun

awesome!



found via adama for president 2008.

brave old world

poll closed. here's making sure the world never forgets;

(as for the two of you who haven't read it yet. READ IT! there.)
1 vote for "it's brilliant!"
1 vote for "well, the plot is dull but the idea is awesome!"
1 vote for "he needs to work on his characters that huxley."
1 vote for "it's ok"

no one thought it sucked. thanks, readers.

adding to that, i actually found another old short review i wrote just after finishing reading this book. i don't think i've written any more, so this is the last. dated february 2006.

i finished reading huxley's brave new world and i must say i'm kind of disappointed. after all, it's supposed to be a classic. (if you haven't read the book, maybe you should stop reading this post now.)

while i think the background is really good; the descriptions of society, all the details, and the whole idea that's, imho, very thought-out; the actual story is un-interesting and the characters flat. it feels as if novel was the wrong form for huxley's ideas. first, the only interesting parts of the actual story is the societal descriptions and some of the long conversations between some of the characters. the rest is a series of un-interesting drama without much empathy and situations that are strained to produce dialogue; interesting for the most part, but weird. as for the characters i find them very rigid and stereotypical. the thinkers, and also most of the people in respected positions, are (obviously) men, and the women characters are, despite the accepted promiscuity in both genders, the "every one belongs to every one else" slogan and the lack of domestic situations, still made out to be more sensitive, stupider and more suppressed than the men, even in the civilized world. also all the interesting conversations were carried out by men. (why is it so common btw, in dystopias, that even though the writers create a new, different society, women are still suppressed? doesn't imagination cover women? even orwell, who i love, describe women in an objectifying way.) i don't care that it was written in the 30s or earlier; i have to ask more of an obviously talented thinker.

i can clearly see why this is an important book, but having said that it feels as if huxley didn't know how to present his really good idea so he made up a story and a few characters to carry it, and failed. unfortunately. i had high expectations on the novel, so maybe that's why i'm disappointed.