Fortinbras' Follies

Lists 2010 - Comics

2011-01-24T13:31:00.001+01:00

Another record! In 2010 I read 86 comics, compared to 54 and 80 in 2008 and 9 respectively.

Top 3 comics for 2010

1. Chris Ware - Acme Novelty Library #18
Chris Ware takes the first place again! In #18 is part of the ongoing "Building Stories" about the residents of a house. This is an extremely touching story, that reinvents how comics can be made (again).

2. Daniel Clows - Like a Velvet Glove Cast In Iron
This comics is crazy! Good! Surreal and amazing with a heavy nod to David Lynch.

3. Alan Moore & Ian Gibson - The Ballad of Halo Jones
Something about this early comic by Alan Moore just stays with me. It's a concentrated extract of all that makes sci-fi awesome.

Special mention goes to Alison Bechdels "Fun Home" which is also great.

Lists 2010 - Books

2011-01-03T15:14:00.004+01:00

2010

BOOKS READ 2010: 37

It's a new record! The number for 2007-9 were 36, 36 and 34.

MOST READ AUTHOR: Bret Easton Ellis (3 books)

I read up on him for my review of his latest book "Imperial Bedrooms", and his visit in Copenhagen.

FICTION/NON-FICTION RATIO: 23/11

Pretty high for non-fiction. Mainly books for my master thesis.

TOP 3 BOOKS OF 2010
(not counting previously read books)

This is very hard for 2010, I read a lot of GREAT books fortunately. But three must be selected, here they are:

1. Jonathan Franzen - Freedom

It's an obvious choice, but without doubt the right one. This powerhouse of a social realistic novel can be compared to the likes of Tolstoj. Great great characters.

2. Joe Haldeman - The Forever War

A sci-fi classic that has aged extremely well. It's powerful and frightening vision is as powerful today as it must have been in 1974. I know Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein is mandatory reading in American military academies, this book should be as well. The title alone is suitable for the US's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan (of course the book draws it inspiration from another glorious military engagement - The Vietnam War).

3. Karl Ove Knausgård - Min Kamp 1

Describing your life in minute details, and publishing it in six heavy volumes over a very short period of time, while pissing of everyone from your friends to your wife, and THEN naming the books "My struggle" sounds to obnoxious to be interesting right? WRONG, it's heavenly!

That's it for books, films and comics to follow.

2010-10-27T15:49:00.001+02:00

Claus Beck-Nielsen's Funeral

2010-10-09T22:16:00.000+02:00

Today, on a sunny but cold autumn day, the artist, performer and actor Claus Beck-Nielsen was buried at Assistentens Kirkergård in Copenhagen. A great many people went with him on his last journey from Glyptoteket to the cemetery. Here follows my photos from the event, as well as a video from the burial itself.

See the video in HD here

R.I.P.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

2010-10-06T00:07:00.000+02:00

I just saw the new Scott Pilgrim movie - Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - based on the wonderful and hilarious comic by Bryan Lee O'Maley - It was like totally awesome and stuff!

I love that adults made this.

Stealing content

2010-10-05T12:43:00.000+02:00

Guatemalan Flight's Data-Recording Parrot Holds Clues To Crash

Theme: American literature

2010-10-04T17:09:00.001+02:00

Oh my, there are so many great American books coming out.

I just read Don DeLillo's "Point Omega" (ok, not so good), then I was reading Richard Russo's pulitzer-winner "Empire Falls", but then I had to take a break from that because I had to prepare myself for Bret Easton Ellis' visit in Copenhagen (sold out I'm afraid), and read "Less than Zero", and now I'm reading "Imperial Bedrooms"(review forthcoming).

Mr. Bret Easton Ellis

Then Jonathan Franzen's superbly hyped new book "Freedom", just came to my door today - and last week I found William Gibson's new book "Zero History" in a bookstore. Oh yeah, and Paul Auster is out with "Sunset Park" (in Danish anyway) and Thomas Pynchon just wrote "Inherent Vice". Simultaneously I'm reading a new Danish anthology about American literature since 1980 (review forthcoming) - all in all choosing titles is not hard right now...

EDIT: And Philip Roth is out with a new book "Nemesis"

The Air is on Fire

2010-10-03T14:12:00.001+02:00

I just saw the David Lynch exhibit in Copenhagen at Gl. Strand - "The Air is on Fire" - it was excellent. (Click photo for a slightly larger version)

"Pete goes to his girlfriend's house"

"Woman with dream"

"Arm of sores"

"Bob burns tree"

"Bob loves Sally until she is blue in the face"

(I'm not entire sure but something like "Bob meets Mr. Redman"

I highly recommend it, it runs until january.

The art of picking a new book to read

2010-09-24T19:17:00.000+02:00

It's very hard for me to start on a new book. Choosing which book to read next, can take me hours. I will go through different phases; first, happily scanning the bookshelve, choosing whatever catches my eye. I will then read the first few pages, until I suddenly realize that I've chosen the wrong book! It's wrong, I can't read this now! I will put it back in it's place. Next, I'll choose one of the books I bought ages ago, but still haven't read. It sits there, pricking my bad conscience. I'll take it out, read the blurbs, count the pages, read the review extracts hailing it, I'll put it back, thinking 'next time'. Often, I read thematically, this is very advantageous for picking a new book. Recently I've read the great sci-fi classics, this narrows the list down drastically. Sometimes, I've just read a very easy and light popular book, then I'll want a more heavy 'literary' book, like a classic, and vice-versa. Often I just choose a thin book, that way, picking wrongly, won't have so big an effect.

Lists 2009 - films

2010-09-24T16:28:00.003+02:00

Yes yes, let's finish up 2009 - make everything nice and neat.

In 2009 I watched 156 film, a step decrease compared to 2008 where I watched 255, but very close to 2007 (153). I think the high number in 2008 is an anomally, explained with me just moving to Berlin, and having lots of time for myself.

Top 5 directors

Ingmar Bergman

1. Alfred Hitchcock & Ingmar Bergman (6 each)

3. Wong Kar Wai & James Ivory (4 each)

5 Akira Kurosawa, Takeshi Kitano & Krzysztof Kieslowski (3 each)

Top 5 films (only counting those I viewed for the first time)

1. The White Ribbon (Haneke)

2. Antichrist (Trier)

3. 2046 (Wai)

4. The Wrestler (Aronofsky)

5. Scenes From a Marriage (Bergman)

OK, that finishes the work left on my desk. More fresh posts to come

A little something for old times sake...

2010-09-21T18:46:00.001+02:00

Welcome home or List 2009 - Books

2010-09-19T15:23:00.010+02:00

Ah, hello my friends and welcome back. I've been away for a while, but now I'm back. The Facebook status update, just wasn't cutting it for me anymore.

New readers are welcome, I don't know why you'd want to follow this blog, it's mainly about me and what I've read and seen, but please, take a seat, stay a little.

Since you've been gone, I've updated my review site (you'll find the three latest, and a link to all my reviews in the right side-bar). I've gotten some more review gigs on two different comic-sites. You'll find them all there. I've also painstakingly, and time-consumingly, updated what I've read and seen, and since some of my last entries was these lists I like to make at the end of the year, I thought I'd start with some lists from 2009.

This is the book list as you might have guessed.

So let's buckle up and get cracking!

2009

BOOKS READ 2009: 34

A slight decrease from 2007 and 8's 36 books - but I think this will be explained later

MOST READ AUTHOR: (tied) Yukio Mishima/Slavoj Zizek (2 books)

No really clear winner here, compared to last years winner Murakami with 6 books. At least a new Japanese author is in play, it would be rather depressing if Murakami had won this third year in a row. Zizek is a Slovenian philosopher I used for my master thesis.

FICTION/NON-FICTION RATIO: 27/7

A little higher than usual in the non-fiction department, also explained with my master thesis.

And now the really interesting category

TOP 3 BOOKS OF 2009
(not counting previously read books)

Mind you, this is written in late 2010, so some of these books are pretty far away in my mind.

But the three best books I read in 2009, thinking back are:

Cormac McCarthy Blood Meridian
Kristian Bang Foss - Stormen i '99
J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace

This i my bid. It was a hard choice, mainly because, though I've read some very good books, I didn't read anything that blew me away (ok Blood Meridian did).

NOW, swiftly moving along. Time for a category introduced in 2008 - COMICS. My passion for this medium have grown since I started reading them, which these number should also tell you:

COMICS READ 2009: 80

Now it's always a bit tricky counting comics, I've chosen to count Trade Paperbacks, when not dealing with a single book. 80 is pretty high! In 2008 it was 54. This should make up for low number of books read.

MOST READ AUTHOR: Robert Kirman (11 Volumes)
MOST READ COMIC: The Walking Dead (11 Volumes)

Ah yes, The Walking Dead, what a splendid comic series.

And finally Top 3 Comics of 2009

Chris Ware Jimmy Corrigan - The Smartest Kid on Earth
Robert Kirkman - The Walking Dead
Moebius & Jodorowski - Inkalen

Chris Ware, I doubt I will ever tire of him - you know, I shook his hand this year, he was very friendly.

Plays and short stories top 1

William Shakespeare - MacBeth

Special mention goes to Sarah Kane, I'm seeing her play 4:48 Psychosis wednesday.

That's it for this post. Take care now.

Best TV show ever

2009-01-17T18:44:00.001+01:00

Lists 2008 - films

2009-01-12T20:43:00.004+01:00

OK let's do this! Moving on to film. As you will recall from my post about books, I was a bit dismayed by the fact that I read exactly the same number of books in 08 as in 07. I need not have any fears like that regarding films, 'cause I really watched a lot more films in 08 than in 07.

In fact I watched 255 films in 2008

That's an increase of 60 % (153 in 2007)

Waow, I should almost feel a little ashamed, but then again I did watch a lot of high brow films - I mean check my Top 5 directors - any film professor would be proud of me.

Werner Herzog (9)
Ingmar Bergman (8)
Joel & Ethan Coen (6)
(Tied) Woody Allen and Stanley Kubrich (5 each)

Honorable mention goes out to these directors, whom I all saw four times each: Kim Ki-Duk, Ridley Scott, Luis Buñuel, Michelangelo Antonioni and Wes Anderson.

Now let's see which films I saw the most times in 2008. Hmm, after counting it turns out I've seen no film more than twice, the films in question are:

A Clockwork Orange, Atonement, Batman Begins, Blade Runner - The Final Edition, No Country For Old Men, The Dark Knight and The Fountain.

Now, for the exciting and very tricky part Top 5 films seen in 2008 (only counting films I saw for the first time).

Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-Ho)
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Buñuel)
Ran (Kurosawa)
Grave of the Fireflies (Takahata)
Solaris (Tarkovsky)

I'll change my mind a million times (in fact I already changed it once, anyone notice?), but in this exact moment, this is pretty much how I feel.

That's it for film! Still to come are series and music. Until then - ciao.

Lists 2008 - books

2009-01-04T04:47:00.007+01:00

Ok I thought I would feed you my lists a little at a time, it makes for frequent updates, and you won't have such a big post to digest.
If your wondering what I mean when I say 'lists', it's like the blogging-highlight of my year (the result from 2007), where I showcase every little scratch of paper I've read, and strip of celluloid I've looked at during the previous year. So actually it's just a resume of my 'cultural artifacts devoured' section, you'll find in the right sidebar. But this year it's gonna be really exciting (for me, probably not for you, if you even read this far lazy bastard), because I've now got the data for two years, so I can do all kinds of crazy and entertaining statistics, like percentages and stuff weeeeeee! And after doing that, I'll make some TOP X lists, sentencing exquisite select artifacts to eternal fame in the annals of history. Who knows, you might even take some of my advice (trust me, I'm practically a professional), and spoil yourself with fore-mentioned artifacts (this might be the personality inducing break you've been waiting for, ending your ceaseless droning in front of X Factor).

Ok, but as I said, I'm gonna break it down in parts, for the already mentioned reasons, plus frankly it's quite a chore, doing all that statistics and calculating.

So I'm gonna kick it of with BOOKS! Yes BOOKS!! They'r just so full of paper.

Ok, first of all, I've added to new sub-categories since 2007, namely comics and plays/short stories. Comics is one of my new great discoveries of 2008 (thank God I'm so broad-minded and all-encompasing! Yay), and I felt it deserved a special mention, and ergo category here on FF. Plays and short stories...well they'r just so easy to read right, it would probably be deemed cheating by the world community if they figured in my book statistic, and I would have to step down as president of FF, and that would be kinda sad.

Ok let us begin ladies and gentlemen with...THE BASICS

BOOKS READ 2008: 36

That's a pretty decent number, not flashy or anything but nice. An exact average of 3 books a month.

MOST READ AUTHOR: Haruki Murakami (6 books)
MOST READ BOOK: Haruki Murakami 'After the Quake' (2 times)

Why...I'm suddenly sort of dizzy with the feeling of deja-vu...Well he's ok I guess.

FICTION/NON-FICTION RATIO: 31/5

That makes sense...non-fiction pffff.

Ok, now lets go over some fun fun statistic, comparing with the data from 2007.

BOOKS READ 2007/2008: 36/36 INCREASE/DECREASE: 0%
MOST READ AUTHOR 2007/2008: Haruki Murakami VARIATION: None
MOST READ BOOK 2007/2008: Norweigian Wood/After the Quake SIMILARITIES: Both by Murakami

OH MY GOD, it's exactly the same as 2007! Please if you don't believe me check it yourself. Oh man, that's kind of depressing, exactly the same number, and Murakami leads most read author and book again. God this is a catastrophy.

Well let's hurry and move on from those depressing figures, lets hurry onwards to the...

TOP 3 BOOKS OF 2008
(not counting previously read books)

Shit this is gonna be hard, lemme think a little ok?

Yasunari Kawabata The Sound of the Mountain
Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina
Vladimir Nabokov Lolita

Actually it wasn't that hard. Special mention goes out to Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead.

But it's not over yet, moving on to comics, my new passion. This is a new category, so no funny statistics (cheer up).

COMICS READ 2008: 54

I've counted the traditional magazine comics and the mangas per volume. I don't really know what to say about this number, is it high? Is it low? Who knows...I like it at least: fiiiiftyyyyy-foooouuurrrr.

MOST READ AUTHOR: Masashi Kishimoto Naruto (19 volumes)
MOST READ COMIC: Naruto (19 Volumes)

Yup the Japs are sure here to stay. Lemme throw in another category for some variation:

MOST READ GRAPHICAL NOVEL AUTHOR: Alan Moore (10 books)

OK then and now to the revealing of THE COMIC TOP 3

Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell From Hell
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons Watchmen
Daniel Clowes Ghost World

That's some fine comics right there.

So almost done, stay with me, quickly moving on to PLAYS AND SHORT STORIES

By further consideration it makes no sense to handle these two types together, so let's just boot the 3 short stories and focus on THE PLAYS

Of course you should see plays and not read them, or maybe both, anyway:

PLAYS READ: 8
MOST READ AUTHOR: Anton Chekhov & August Strindberg (2 each)

THE PLAYS TOP 1

August Strindberg A Dream Play

That's it folks, look forward to the next time where we'll go over the undoubtedly biggest category - films.

Ode to a three month break

2008-12-25T14:47:00.003+01:00

Happy three-month anniversary!! (fireworks explode, confetti rain from the sky)

Yes, I'm still alive and well. I've been having too good of a time to care about blogging, that seems to be how it works anyway right, I mean the highest frequency of blogging was during the month where I wrote three exam papers.
Berlin is amazing, I really love this city, and now it's not the shallow love of first sight - the short weekends or weeks in Berlin that infatuate you with impressions but leave you hanging, the pretty girl on the street you fall in love with, but never get to know. Now it's a deep satisfying love, in spite of all the bad memories (you now know the beautiful girl, and she's told you about her horrible childhood, her scarred soul, but you love her in spite - or indeed because - of it). So deep is my love.

I have not been all wurst and bier though, I painstakingly update my 'cultural artifacts devoured' section, which indeed is the epicenter of this exhibitionistic endeavor. My tumbllr blog 'Digiscrap' still lives a thoroughly mediocre existence (accessible from the front page). My Flickr account is updated now and then. I'm all about the web 2.0 baby!

Also I have started this new silly blog, which is actually my exam for a course I have, which deals only with the reception of the song 'Sympathy For the Devil' by The Rolling Stones. I call it Sympathy For the Devil, pretty catchy. My teacher really liked the latest entry about the animé, so I'll do more stories like that in the future.

Also a new generation of bloggers have stepped up to the challenge, leaving us dinosaurs coughing in their dust, which I feel I owe some tribute, so here it is:

Overspringsværen Is the blog of the very talented illlustrator, and former TDC slave and little brother Thomas. Here he displays he's amazing and depraved (fast entartene) art. There is even a portrait of me there, try to find it.
Sneræven fra Østgrønlands Polarblog is the blog of a slightly fascist polarfox, and it's secret schemes for world domination
Ravneland is the blog of the tormented and weltschmertz-ish singer Magnus, who you may know from such bands as Manchild.

Look forward to the annual list of statistical data on my cultural consumptions, as well as the best of 2008 awards. It's gonna be super swell. Bis dann.

My new room

2008-09-25T01:57:00.004+02:00

Well today I finally settled my future housing situation, with only 6 days left here at Paul-Robeson-Str. I finally found another room in a WG. I've really been stressing over it lately, so I'm so glad that's done with.

This is NOT my building, very close though

My new place is quite the ideal place for me, and by far the one I wast most interested in getting. It's in a great, cozy neighbourhood, right behind this nice square called Helmholtzplatz (where my favorite café is). It's big, bright, nicely furnished, got a big balcony, and is facing south, oh and it's ridicously cheap.
The rest of the apartment is very cosy, if a bit rough, and it's got a dishwasher! I'm going to share it with two german girls, who are both working for a film production studio. Weee I'm so happy! Here's a pic of it.

The balcony is behind those windows, and the bed in the corner behind the door.

Aufgefahren

2008-09-16T01:24:00.002+02:00

Wow it's been two weeks already! It feels like it was just yesterday I arrived, and at the same time it feels like I've been here a very long time. I've very much settled into the Berlin life, it's really very easy, I can honestly say that I love this town, even though I've still only seen about 5 % of it.

I've dropped my language course, the teacher was a bit of a turd, and frankly I had no patience with it. I've much rather explore the city, read the papers, watch German soaps and talk to my German roommates than listen to him, so that's what I did, and I'm very pleased with my decision. The fact that I have a whole month in Berlin with nothing planned except learning the language, also thrills me ceaselessly, though it have been pretty demoralizing for my friends, who are sticking to their courses (mainly due to a hefty admission I gather).

But actually I do have another task, besides learning Deutsch, namely finding a new room for October. Which is not as easy as I thought it would be. I haven't seriously started looking, that is on the schedule for this week, but it looks like it might take some work. The room I have now was the first one I applied for, so in my mind it was always extremely easy to find a room, but that was apparently a bit warped.
Anyway I'm sure I'll find something, of course the fact that I'm still extremely picky probably also have something to do with it. I've also talked with a friend about starting up a new 4-room WG (collective), and pulling in two Germans we can abuse for language lessons - we'll see.

Otherwise life is good, eating a lot of sausage and drinking a lot of beer, trying to integrate my self.

Tschüssi

Ich bin angekommen

2008-09-03T18:34:00.004+02:00

I just moved to Berlin yesterday, into a room in an apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, in a collective with two German guys Christian & Markus. I'm officially here to study at the TU-Berlin for the coming semester as an Erasmus student.

My first feelings about living in Berlin so far are: I LOVE IT, I just walk the streets constantly high about actually living here, I love this city. And two, I'm never leaving, never, ever.

Today have been mostly about practical things, like getting registered at the university, getting a residence permit from the city hall, getting a German bank account and phone number, etc. etc. Tomorrow will also be mainly practical, but I have to say it's not been to much trouble so far, far less than I dreaded in any case.

My new street in Prenzlberg

I only speak German to both my roommates and in connection with my errands around town, and even though it sounds horrible in my ears, and mostly understood, and in turn understand everything, which is very cool! My 3 weeks of intensive German school, and 30+ hours of watching German TV series and films weren't for naught - logically :D

Even though all that, it was very nice to meet two Danish friends of mine, whom I meet at the language school, and being able to articulate myself better than a 5-year old. Later we're going out for cocktails, machts spaß!

I've created a photofolder for my Berlin photos on flickr here, where I will post what i shoot. Today I decided to see the city through my eyes, rather than through my camera, so so far it's only my new apartment. I'm sure I'll get around to playing the turist soon enough.

Lots of updates to come! Stay tuned.

2008-09-01T01:15:00.002+02:00

Ok so I lied, what are you gonna do about it?

and that concludes our summer hibernation

2008-08-20T12:33:00.004+02:00

I hope you have all been enjoying your summer, I certainly have, but it's time to get back and do some blogging - yeah! I'm very pleased that my series of soothing animal photos got so well received. Now I have a lot to tell you since the last time we spoke: my new gaming device, the new phenomenal series I'm watching, the crash course I'm taking, the sublime book I've read etc. etc. But I will go over that in due time during the days and weeks to come.
For now you'll have to settle with the last soothing animal photo, and a link to a brand new book review I've published on litteraturnu.dk - about time too - on a little book called Absurdistan. Welcome back.

2008-08-15T09:34:00.002+02:00

2008-08-13T18:34:00.001+02:00

2008-08-12T21:30:00.002+02:00

2008-08-06T16:28:00.003+02:00

2008-08-04T23:23:00.002+02:00

2008-08-01T10:31:00.002+02:00

Psyched

2008-07-20T11:46:00.004+02:00

The new Batman film - The Dark Knight - is currently the number one film on IMDB with a rating of 9.7 out of 10 (23.611 voters at the time of writing), and I'm seeing it Wednesday - OMG OMG OMG I CAN'T WAIT!!1

Roskilde Q & A

2008-07-08T00:04:00.007+02:00

I'm back from Roskilde, and man what a festival. The weather was perfect, the music great and the drugs plenty. I've decided to do a little Q & A with myself, it saves me the bother of making sentences.

What did you see?

Choir of Young Believers
Radiohead
Mogwai
Grinderman
Battles
Tokyo Police Club
Liars
No Age
Girl Talk
The Notwist
Neil Young
My Bloody Valentine
Supersilent
Fuck Buttons
Cat Power
Bob Hund
Bonni 'Prince' Billy
Jomi Massage
Dub Tractor
Opiate

Actually a bit more than that, but nothing worth mentioning.

What was the best concert?

That's tough, I think I will have to say My Bloody Valentine. My expectations where so high and were fully delivered, as I walked out of that tent, I knew something had changed in me, forever.

Biggest positive surprise?

Tokyo Police Club was actually a pretty good act. I never heard them before.

Greatest disappointment?

No truly great disappointments, but Supersilent didn't really do it for me as much as I had hoped. Grinderman was also a bit uneven.

Worst musical moment?

Hearing (obviously not seeing) miss vanilla/frøken leverpostej generic Danish girl Tina Dickow rape Hallelujah. Get a job in a daycare facility please. Also Anti-Flag was fucking awful, college punk a la Green Day times ten.

Best Lightshow?

Radiohead. They brought their own (enviromentally friendly of course) LED lights, which were awesome.

Most touching concert?

I can honestly say that my eyes were moist during pretty much all of Radiohead, I just love that band so much - MARRY ME THOM!

Biggest "oh snap!" moment?

My Bloody Valentine's closing, which was 15-20 minutes of noise (see video below). I felt purified afterwards, like the sonic emissions from the wall of Marshall amplifiers had shaken of all the peedust (actually a version of the track "You Made Me Realise", read a description of the experience here ed.)

Greatest party?

Girl Talk. Which was also something of an oh snap moment. Mixing Ace of Base, Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins with things like Dr. Dre, Wu-Tang etc. etc. was seriously freakisly awesome. That tent was steaming.

Sweetest moment?

Cat Power aka Chan Marshall. She gave a really heartfelt perfomance, and just seemed so honestly greatfull for the applause she got in the end, that she had a really hard time leaving the stage. She's also my future wife.

Weirdest moment?

Frontsinger Angus Andrew in Liars, all dressed in white, with a big hairdo and moustache, twiching his long limbs in front of a half-empty pavillion stage like a combination of Jesus and Jim Morrison. Sweet.

Thank you for you time

No problem, peace.

Sweet

2008-07-01T01:57:00.003+02:00

Tomorrow I'm of to Roskilde, and I must say, I am so super psyched about it, fuck it's gonna be so terribly awesome.

iPhone

2008-06-27T18:27:00.005+02:00

The new improved iPhone hits the Danish market in about two weeks. Extra features include 3G technology and GPS. Telia has monopolized the sales of them, and are of course charging hilariously large sums to join the iPhone club.

Who do I have to kill to get one?

By the way, that joke with putting "i" in front of other objects, like iGun and iShelf or whatever never gets old.

Summer activities

2008-06-23T17:51:00.004+02:00

I finished my damn exams after four dreadful weeks, and now I can enjoy a well-earned summer vacation. It seems the busier I am, the more I tend to blog, which means Fortinbras' Follies will probably run on low steam for the next couple of weeks.

I've got two top-rated games to play - GTA IV and Metal Gear Solid IV - it seems the fourth iteration is where it really kicks of, because these games rock. In the entire history of the gaming website gamespot, six games have been awarded the perfect score 10, an honour that was bestowed on both aforementioned games, which I have to agree with. Together they represent the most ambithious games I've ever seen. GTA features a replica of New York City, completely populated with a beliavable population who will go through their daily routines, and a great storyline. Metal Gear Solid features the most perfect synergy between story and gameplay I've yet to see, and an extremely beautiful presentation. It has several hours (at least 5-6 hours) of cut-scenes, the ending alone lasts over 1 hour! But you almost never get tired of them, simply because they're so beautiful and the story is so great (with great Japanese pathos and manga conventions), and they mix seamlessly into gameplay in a way that is quite breathtaking.

Check out this totally over-the-top duel between Raiden and Vamp, so cool

Other than playing games, I've got about 50 books and 100 films I'd like to read and see, and a lot of reviews I plan on writing. I'm also going to Roskilde next week, so check back for a feature on that.

Rule Brittania

2008-06-10T16:10:00.004+02:00

I'm still pursuing my new found interest for comics. I read the second Alan Moore book From Hell, which was also brilliant (a brilliance the film in no way catches, so don't judge it on that). It uses the 'royal conspiracy' theory about Jack the Ripper, where the 5 prostitutes are killed by the royal doctor Gull (don't worry, that's not a spoiler - it isn't a whosdunit it's a whydunit). I heard an interview with Alan Moore, where he talks about magic, which he perceives as manipulating the conciousness of people through symbols (words and pictures), which is exactly what From Hell does. Let me tell you, it is horrifying, more so than most other things I've read (Lovecraft comes to mind), so much in fact that I actually felt dizzy during some of the most horrifying scenes, not to mention nauseous, which is a good thing! In my book at least. The drawings are black and white pencilled, gritty and detailed, Eddie Campbell did a wonderful job.

I'm truly scared of Dr. Gull

The appendix is a masterpiece in it's own right, there is an entry for about each page - 572 - in the comic, which in detail explains what is fiction and what is based on sources, and what sources they are. Locations, dialogue, architecture, method of killing, even the faces are based available photographs. It's all so meticulously researched it takes your breath away, and even when Moore invents scenes, they are very often based on educated speculation. And despite (or indeed because) that, the story is still absolutely captivating. The second appendix briefly gives an overview (in comic form) over the field of Jack the Ripper research - very entertaining.

I guess the problem with starting out with Alan Moore, is that he's set the bar so very very high, that my few pursuits with other comic creators, have left me wishing for more (literally haha). It's a good thing then he has created so much, my next project is V for Vendetta, recently purchased on comic and the adaptation on blu-ray.
I've also been reading some Frank Miller - who of course is also legendary - both his Sin City books and his tenure at Daredevil are very entertaining.

Brideshead Revisited. Homoerotisch? Very.

Simultaneously I've been very fascinated with England, especially old England (Guess From Hell is at least slightly to blame). I've been reading some Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf, and might read Elliot's Middlemarch and some Jane Austen. I've also started watching the seminal British television show Brideshead Revisited, which is absolutely stupendous I dare say.

NY Art blogger

2008-06-06T14:23:00.002+02:00

My friend Karen is blogging for this cool New York art thing called Art 21 - the same place she had an internship last semester (remember hers and Thildes blog? Not active any more) - and which is also a television station on PBS I think. She writes very smart articles on art in Copenhagen, check out her profile and her articles.

Karen has written about the Sally Mann exibition in Den Sorte Diamant

Boys 'n boy

2008-06-04T11:00:00.000+02:00

I want to congratulate my old friends Hanne & Toke with their new tiny son! Isn't that just one of the most harmonious father-son pictures you've ever seen? Oh I can't believe Boys is a father, I always knew he had it in him.

The Dark Knight

2008-06-03T19:00:00.002+02:00

Speaking of comics, I can't wait for the next Batman film The Dark Knight. Again directed by Christopher Nolan, whose take on Batman in Batman Begins totally revived the franchise and made for one of the best comics to film adaptations as of yet. The new film is out in July in the states.

Komiks

2008-06-02T21:04:00.004+02:00

This weekend I treated myself to a visit at Komiks, the comic festival in Copenhagen, with all the other freaks and geeks. I don't really read comics any more, but I used to do it a lot when I was younger. I would visit the library almost daily, and hang around and read comics.
Lately I've mostly read about comics - like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - and a single graphic novel: Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer winning Maus, which was amazing. I've felt that I needed to explore the graphic novel more thoroughly, especially after seeing Sin City and 300 - based on Frank Miller's comics - and From Hell and V for Vendetta - based on Alan Moore's comics (not to his satisfaction, he notoriously hates all adaptations of his work). So on the festival I bought Moore's From Hell and Watchmen (the latter I'm currently reading, and will be reviewing soon - it's mind-blowingly brilliant), and two albums of Miller's Sin City, and given my enthusiasm for Watchmen, I think it's guaranteed that I'll be adding the graphic novel to my list of cultural interests.

Drawing from Miller's 300. Above: The Simpsons spoofing Alan Moore's hate for film adaptions of his work. Millhouse: "Mr. Moore, can you sign my DVD of Watchmen Babies?"

The festival it self was fun, though a bit disorganized (the interview area looked like a junkies living room, with mikes all over). I saw Don Rosa, besides Carl Barks undoubtedly the best Donald Duck illustrator, Méziéres and Christin (makers of Linda og Valentin), Achdé (Illustrator of Lucky Luke), and a lot of people I didn't know. As I said I don't really now the field that well. For all my pictures of the festival, look at the set on flickr.

Mr. Comic-book-guy Morten Søndergaard, I've given that guy my allowance countless times

Lost finale

2008-05-30T18:35:00.004+02:00

I just saw the season finale of Lost 4, and man what a ride! Chances are you won't have seen season four yet, so I won't spoil anything, but let me just say that it's still mind-boggling amazing. A previous teacher of mine once said it reminded him of a computer game, I actually think it reminded me more of a really excellent roleplaying scenario - it maybe just the nerd in me talking - but I could actually feel dices being thrown during some of the combat scenes - weird huh?
Anyway if you're a fan, and waiting for it to come on Danish TV (sucker), you have something great to look forward to (in a couple of years or whenever).

Oh, and there are still two seasons remaining, I guess season 5 starts this fall.

William Gibson

2008-05-28T17:00:00.000+02:00

Author William Gibson is one of my all time favorites, and one I keep coming back to again and again. His book Neuromancer is probably the book I've read the most times, and I'm so lucky to have a signed copy from his visit in Copenhagen in '97. He was part of the whole mirrorshades/cyberpunk scene along with Bruce Sterling among others, and invented the term cyberspace after watching kids playing video games in an arcade. His prose is absolutely fantastic and his topics are always an indication of what the future has in hold for us.

Chris Cunningham also made this amazing video for Björk "All is Full of Love" - see it here

I think there have been two adaptations of his novels, one was of the novel "New Rose Hotel" starring Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe, which was actually pretty good but very low-budget and not one of Gibsons best works. The other was Johnny Mnemonic, starring of course Keanu, Ice-T and Dina Meyer who was the only highlight of that film, which should otherwise be forgotten. A couple of years ago there were big rumours (even a website I think?) about Chris Cunningham - maker of notorious Aphex Twin videos among other things - directing Neuromancer. Cunningham told the press how he had made storyboards for it when he was a kid, and had always dreamed of doing it, and his visual style would suit the film perfectly - all in all it was like a dream come true, I couldn't have imagined a better man for the job (having in mind that he hadn't actually made a feature film). Unfortunately the project was scrapped, and Neuromancer is still without a film adaptation (which might actually be the best thing).

Now however it appears that Peter Weir (A great director: Master & Commander, The Truman Show, Dead Poet Society among others) will direct the adaptation of Pattern Recogniction - Gibsons previous novel which is awesome, which is due this year it appears. So maybe we will finally see a decent big-budget adaptation of Gibson, maybe not, we'll have to wait and see but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

The fat little man

EXPLICIT LANGUAGE FOLLOWS
Ok, as I wrote this, I just checked IMDB and discovered that there is another Neuromancer adaptation in the making, due in 2009. Directed by this little fat little man, whose directed a couple of Britney Spears videos, and starring Hayden Christensen as Case (OH MY GOD! THAT IS SICK CASTING). If they fuck up my film I will kill them all (not really - just a figure of speech™). Motherfuckers.

Sensory overload

2008-05-28T12:30:00.005+02:00

Fuck Buttons

Noizers Fuck Buttons (whose début I'm still obsessing about) and legendary post-rockers Mogwai have just been announced for this years festival. I've already said it was the best line-up I've ever seen, so now I guess my head will explode - kaboom.

Current must-see list:

Battles
Black Mountain
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Catpower
Dub Tractor & Opiate
Girl Talk
Grinderman
Hot Chip
Liars
My Bloody Valentine
The Notwist
Radiohead
No Age
Mogwai
Fuck Buttons

(I guess I won't get very drunk this year)

Oh and I might check this out too:

(OSAKA INVASION (JPN) dækker over et fornemt pluk af udsyrede kunstnere fra den japanske storby. DJ SCOTCH EGG, OVE-NAXX, MARUOSA og BOGULTA byder på digital hardcore, metal, improviseret støj og de mest vanvittige genresammenstød.)

Murakami review

2008-05-28T00:08:00.010+02:00

The cover gets top marks!

I'm sure you remember me talking about Japanese author Haruki Murakami right? He wrote my most read and best book (Norwegian Wood) last year, and was also my overall most read author (he might win the later prestige again this year).

When I initially started reviewing books at litteraturnu, I thought a bit about what my niche or speciality should be, and I thought why not Japanese literature? Not that I was or is in any way an expert, but I had read a few Japanese authors, and I probably knew more about it than most others. Thankfully I didn't need to be so narrow, and I can pretty much choose whatever books I like. Today however I just got my hands on my first Japanese book up for review. It's Murakami's "After the Quake" (Efter Skælvet), translated from Japanese to Danish by award winning Mette Holm. I feel so lucky and a bit intimidated, but I'm going to do all I can to write a killer review.

That is, when I've handed in my three exam papers, Jesus! I gotta go!

By the way, for more Japanese madness, visit a new blog called Stjålne Døtre by one of my friends. He's manically obsessed with Japan (don't mention the war) much more than I could ever claim, so his posts tends to revolve around that, but occasionally he blogs about other things (like how his friends tease him). He's also a great writer who constructs some lovely prose. You'll find it here (yup, tumblr is spreading).

Planet Earth Bargain

2008-05-27T01:54:00.005+02:00

Hmm, remember the BBC documentary Planet Earth I talked about? I went ahead and bought that on DVD, so I could enjoy those magnificent pictures again and again. I wish I had waited a little, because i just ran across this add on facebook. It's a subscription to Illustreret Videnskab with the Planet Earth box as a present for 60 DKK. While I hate to advertise for Bonniers, that is just so ridiculously cheap that I felt I had to tell you, also you will become a better person if you watch it. So buy it, now, or buy it for someone you care about, and come back and thank me afterwards. And yes, I read the terms, and you can cancel your subscription immediately, no strings attached. Do it.

Among the spectacular scenes in the series, is footage of a snow leopard hunting - this is the first time a snow leopard has ever been filmed extensively, and the crew literally spent years finding one - since it is an extremely endangered species.

Another book review.

2008-05-26T19:52:00.003+02:00

I did a little review of a children's book for folkeskolen.dk, read it here.

Indy review

2008-05-22T14:45:00.003+02:00

Check out my review of the new Indiana Jones film in the review section. Also I've really grown fond of Tumblr, I've added an RSS feed on the left to keep you updated.

Gracias puta

2008-05-20T14:42:00.005+02:00

So I'm back from Spain, and I had an absolutely amazing time. DMI were totally wrong, and the weather was great. We spend most of our time in Granada, but we also rented a car the last three days, and drove around looking at things. You can see my photos from the trip here.

A friend drew my attention to tumblr blogging. It's a way to share pictures, videos and texts from the web, easily and without having to write a lot of text yourself, sort of like a digital scrapbook. I've made an attempt at one here, we'll see if it turns out to be something worthwhile.

(Der ønskes en redegørelse for og en sammenligning af forskellige forestillinger om storbyer og storbymentalitet)

More more MOOR

2008-05-09T21:45:00.007+02:00

Remember last November when I went to the kingdom of Granada in Spain? Well, I'm doing that again tomorrow, with the exact same agenda, only this time I've already seen Alhambra, which means more bar-time!
The weather forecast is not entirely perfect...

Allright, allright, laugh it out, I promise you we'll have a killer time. Ataluego!

The Big Come Down

2008-05-07T18:30:00.007+02:00

I've been spending a lot of time on last.fm, too much in fact. It's a great place to get to know new bands and share your love with other fans, and of course flaunt your excellent taste to the world. Recently I read this article, criticising people for flaming each other about their taste in music, and to illustrate his point (I guess) he then went and flamed his own top 50 list of artist. An example is My Bloody Valentine (his number 5), about which he writes:

5. My Bloody Valentine- "Let's disguise that we can't write songs, play instruments or sing with walls of static!" "LOL OKAY"

This has since become fashionable on last.fm, and in that spirit I want to share a review of an old favorite of mine. The album in question is The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails (currently my number 2), an album that for a long period was my absolute favourite (I actually even did a music video of The Great Below, which thankfully is not available on youtube, and bullied my then girlfriend into buying the album). A friend and me worshipped Trent Reznor, and though he was the second coming of Jesus.
Now of course it turns out NIN hasn't done anything really good since The Downward Spiral. Sure Year Zero had it's highlight, and Ghosts is nice audio tapestry, but in the great perspective they are totally irrelevant and unoriginal (Christ, Trent is 42 years old).

Now for the review. I was surfing the sacred triangle of last.fm, allmusicguide and Pitchfork, when I got lost in this review of The Fragile on Pitchfork. It's absolutely devastating, funny and occassionally true. I bring it here in it's entirety.

1:00am: I've gathered my supplies and I'm going to sit this one straight through. Trent's going to keep me up for at least another two hours with his latest bloated indulgence, The Fragile. So I've got a pot of coffee. It's black. Pitch black. As black as your fucking soul! And I'm typing on this machine. This machine is grinding me down. I feel like a fucking machine! Grrrarrrgh!

9:00pm: My first experience with The Fragile, as is the case with most new CDs, comes in my Honda. I'm sitting at a red light on Webster and Damen, waiting for a left turn. Trent Reznor is screaming, "Tear a hole exquisite red/ Fuck the rest and stab it dead" over a troop of industrial guitars and digital whining. I yawn with such stretching intensity that I miss my turn light. The entire situation strikes me as particularly humorous. Here I am-- a 24- year- old white guy with floppy bangs, wearing a tie, driving a Honda-- and all the bile Trent Reznor can must muster up from his supposedly scorched soul makes me yawn.

Sometime over the last decade, music that is intrinsically meant to be menacing (i.e. Nine Inch Nails) has become a banal syndicated- action hour soundtrack. It's easy to imagine the overproduced grind of "The Wretched" blaring through a TV screen as Nightman kicks a henchman off a roof. This stuff could be the score to "The Crow 4: In Space." And this time around, Trent has unanimously failed to shock anyone above the age of 15 and under the age of 54. I mean, have you listened to old Judas Priest lately? Now, this is not to say music must be confrontational, although the best of it typically is. However, in a pop society that has become numb to industrial sounds through ESPN2 and Surge commercials, it's no longer interesting or tolerable to base one's entire output on volume and amplified cliches.

And so "Somewhat Damaged" continues to pound out its same four notes. Systematically, layers of crust, fuzz, dirt, and whatever else Reznor can scrape off the walls in his studio are piled on top, pounding out the same four- note scale. 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4. Ooh, wow, did he just say "fuck?" Trent, Holden Caulfield rubbed that out 50 years ago.

8:00pm: "Hello?" asks Ryan.

"Okay, I'm going to read you something," I say.

"Oh, hey dude. Um, sure."

"'She shines/ In a world full of ugliness/ She matters/ When everything is meaningless.'"

"Oh, man."

"'Sometimes I have everything/ Yet I wish I felt something.'"

"Are these lyrics?"

"'Underneath it all/ We feel so small/ The Heavens fall / But still we crawl.'"

"Haha. What is this?"

"Pleading and/ Needing and/ Bleeding and/ Breeding and/ Feeding/ Exceeding."

"Rhyme-y."

"Now everything is clear/ I can erase the fear/ I can disapper."

"Man, what is this. Is this some emo album?"

"I am every fucking thing and just a little more/ And when I suck you off not a drop will go to waste/ It's really not so bad, you know, once you get past the taste, yeah/ Starfuckers."

"No. Oh, no. No. It's Nine Inch Nails!"

1:49am: "Even Deeper," a track mixed by Dr. Dre, spits aluminum riffs into my headphones. The entire concept of pairing of Dr. Dre and Nine Inch Nails, a match maid in Kornboy heaven (or most likely the Interscope commissary) is laughable. Shuffling beats squirt under "Blade Runner" booms and fathoms of string samples. The end product sounds entirely similar to the rest of this 104- minute albatross. The token celebrity stroking of this studio marriage is fittingly overwrought, unnecessary and done with questionable intent. From the sound of it, Trent cares little to broaden his palate from this rap/ rock union. Without the liner notes, one would never pick this song as "the Dr. Dre track."

Ironically, a man hailed by his legion of testoster- drones as "genius" often leans heavily on the work of other, better sound wizards. Adrian Belew, Steve Albini, and Alan Moulder conspicuously leave their fingerprints all over The Fragile. In other words, whenever something sounds cool, it's most likely coming from one of these other men, who have worked on such mind- blowing classics like Talking Heads' Remain in Light, Slint's Spiderland, and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, respectively. The constipated drone of "The Day the World Went Away" unabashedly attempts to mimic My Bloody Valentine's sculpted cacophony. Unfortunately, from the hands of an unsubtle goth, the result is strained fuzz.

2:00am: Trent Reznor is the worst, most predictable, most uninspired lyricist working today. The freshman gloom spouted throughout The Fragile are only making it easier for the Goth Lyric Generators on the web. Copy the word decay from this sentence. Paste it into a Word document. Highlight it. Press Shift-F7. Every synonym that appears on your thesaurus screen pops up in Trent Renzor's pitiful poetry. Coming from the mouth of a steadily plumping, thirtysomething recluse (who, incidentally, is bearing striking resemblance to Phil Hartman's SNL Frankenstein character these days), it's just sad. Does he collect candelabras and "Spawn" comics? I guarantee it. In the five years it's taken to complete The Fragile, Trent seemingly watched Dark City at least 40 times. It's insulting to hear Trent and his PR firm talk up the "radical departure" and pop flourishes on this record because the record sounds 100% similar to Broken and The Downward Spiral. Or more accurately, it's like combining Broken and The Downward Spiral. Clever.

2:45am: The gentle piano plunking of "La Mer" lulls me to sleep momentarily on its second time around. It's not the gentle ambience of it, though, since this loud sludge could knock out a speed addict. The Fragile is the most taxing record I've ever had to work through in my five years of reviewing CDs. I mean, even the Beatles failed to make a double album without throwing in some filler. Why does Trent Reznor thinking he can succeed? I'm actually glad Billy Corgan used up The Infinite Sadness. Reznor would jump all over a title like that.

It's difficult to decide where to even begin trimming The Fragile. It's so stunningly monotonous. Any bit of it could be lost without notice. I mean, when the instrumental interludes carry an album, it's a blaring neon sign flashing "stay away!" I pity the kids of the style- over- substance generation-- and yes, it will only be kids-- who enjoy this album. Kids, high school isn't as bad as it seems. You'll grow out of this phase. Save yourself, or your parents, the 25 bucks. The Fragile's length begins to make sense in this context. 104 minutes is the perfect duration for those post- dinner, pre- "X-Files" periods of "nobody understands me" bedroom isolation sit-ins.

3:00am: Before getting back into The Fragile, I peruse the liner notes and artwork. David Carson of "Raygun" fame laid out the artwork for The Fragile. And what a fitting look! Carson, whose design work broke new ground for typography, lost touch years ago. The originator of the 1990s' trademark "crusty look" is analogous to the fat- bottomed disco fonts of the '70s or the thin sans- serif of deco. But guess what? It's almost 2000 and the world needs a new look and a new sound. Carson and Reznor will forever be remembered as 1990s pop figures that helped create an identifiable logo for the decade, and little else. Trent, you are Flock of Seagulls. The Fragile embodies everything wrong with this decade-- hype, letdown, technological fetishism, empty rage, financial bloat, bombast, self- loathing, and indifference to anything truly important and interesting flowing underneath the surface. Trent Reznor is Chris Gaines.

3:20am: "Starfuckers, Inc." That's pretty much all I have to say in criticism of this album. That sums it right up. Do you or don't you want to own an album with a song called "Starfuckers, Inc?" Besides the snickering potty- mouthed title, it's one of the most blatantly hypocritical attacks ever put to tape. It's a widely- publicized attack on Marilyn Manson. There are several lyrical references to the gangly idiot such as "I'm one of the beautiful ones" and "My god pouts on the cover of a magazine." And how are these jabs delivered? Why, in a song which sounds exactly like Marilyn Manson (and also borrows from Carly Simon), by a man who pouts on the cover of Rolling Stone, Alternative Press, Spin, etc.

In essence, Reznor is Marilyn Manson without the makeup (which is a bit like Kiss without the makeup). The Fragile is simply Music for 'The Elder for the digital age. I take comfort knowing that the passing of another decade will make this record seem as amusingly insincere as 10CC.

And at this point, I'm angry, hungry, and frustrated. In fact, I feel like kinda like Trent Reznor. Is this the grand design? After over two hours of listening to his incessant whining and grating, I've become the very model of his audience.

Rating 2.0

By Brent DiCrescenzo

Ouch! I can't wait to read their review of The Slip. This of course doesn't mean I'll stop listening to NIN, in fact I think they're pretty great and they're touring with Deerhunter - kudos!

Reviewer Brent DiCrescenzo (now retired) is apparently quite infamous, judging by this article.

No Age

2008-05-05T23:55:00.000+02:00

Funny thing, in my post about the Roskilde Festival program, I put the band No Age on the list I might see if I was in the mood. When I wrote that, I had never actually heard them, I had just read the description on the Roskilde homepage and thought it sounded interesting (the words noise, bloody and valentine being mentioned). Now yesterday, I heard their new album Nouns, which sounded incredible - noise pop somewhat similar to Deerhunter - and today a review which praised it highly was posted by pitchfork (9.2 - an unusual high score). Of course that reinforced my new found love for the album, and made me very grateful that I dodged the 'Pitchfork Whore' label, which I otherwise have a tendency to attract. Cudos to the festival once again, No Age certainly made my must-see list (sorry, Neil Young is still a maybe, even though he may 'be the shit').

Wata's pedals

2008-05-01T06:23:00.004+02:00

Non stop

2008-04-30T04:26:00.011+02:00

I've been listening to a lot of new good music lately, therefore I can't single any one release out here as the greatest. That's why this post will mostly just be name-dropping along with a few lines. I can't promise I'll even like these bands in a few weeks, but chances are I will - blabla.

Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See, But Cannot Feel

This is Bradford Cox' solo project - he's the singer from Deerhunter (the band who permanently damaged my hearing at a gig last year, and voted the second best album by FF of 2007). Some of the tracks sounds very Deerhunterish, but mostly they are a bit more minimalistic. I really like it, despite the long and pretentious title. Bradford also has a blog, on which he very often releases songs and remixes.

Black Dice - Load Blown

This is trippy, somewhat dronish, experimental sonical electronical noise (don't you love labels? They're so useless). It seems to get better each time, and some tracks really are killer. It has a very optimistic mood.

Boris - Smile

Japanese Boris, doom/drone/sludge metal-rock whatever, and destroyers of hearing, just released this album. There's a lot of singing on it, and the genre is mostly speedy metal. There's a couple of tracks I really like, but mostly this is pretty disappointing.

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles

The media is all over this band, and the hype is as usual way to much. Despite that, this is a very good album, with some great 8-bit dance tracks.

Chromatics - Night Drive

New wave pop or dark disco. This is very eightish, but with a new millennium cynicism. And it's actually very cool, cool being the right word. Highly recommended, and the singer is a fox. There's a cover of Kate Bush' Running Up That Hill, that I must hear at least once a day.

High Places - 03/07 – 09/07

Tribal beats and coquette singing with cute lyrics, equals great and addictive music, made for sunny weather.

Ok, that has to be enough for now. Those who weren't mentioned, but deserved it are: Frightened Rabbit "The Midnight Organ Fight", M83 "Saturdays = Youth" and Growing "Vision Swim".
This was a bad idea, I'm never doing it again, and I'm moving this to my main blog, tchh.

Boris, Loppen 26/4

2008-04-28T01:31:00.006+02:00

Roskilde Festival

2008-04-24T20:31:00.005+02:00

Liars

The program for this years Festival is finished, and it might just be the best program I've yet to experience. Here's what I'm gonna see

Battles
Black Mountain
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Catpower
Dub Tractor & Opiate
Girl Talk
Grinderman
Hot Chip
Liars
My Bloody Valentine
The Notwist
Radiohead

And if I'm in the mood:

Anti-Flag
José Gonzáles
Jomi Massage
The Late Parade
M.I.A.
No Age
The Raveonettes
Spleen United
Veto
Neil Young

Waow, seeing it here before me, it absolutely is the best line-up I've seen as of yet. Looks like Roskilde finally found a decent booker, who follows the music scene - no more fucking Guns n' Roses and Metallica crap. Yay!

And another plus, is that the weather can only be better than last year.

My new favorite TV channel

2008-04-22T21:18:00.006+02:00

High Places - Shared Islands

Vampire Weekend - A-Punk

Animal Collective - Water Curses

Boris - Smile

Garfield minus Garfield

2008-04-21T20:04:00.003+02:00

Click for more

Series like paintings

2008-04-14T02:52:00.004+02:00

Being the HBO fan that I am, I thought I should give their most succesfully series a chance - The Sopranos, so I watched the first season. I thought it was pretty good, not amazing nor brilliant, but entertaining enough, but not enough to keep me on as a viewer. Really I'm a little confounded of what all the mass-hysteria that surrounded that show. 7/10 in my book.

A series that also has it's ups and downs, but that I am addicted to is Battlestar Galactica, which just started it's fourth and final season. The third season was pretty horrible at times (especially the awful awful President Roslin), but amends have been promised, and I for one am very curious about the end.

Ode to Russia

2008-04-10T00:27:00.008+02:00

The world would be such a poorer place without Russia. Think about Tarkovsky, Dostojevskij, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Eisenstein, Nabokov and Turgenev which is only scratching the surface, or the many exciting years of impending world doom during the cold war, or the great puppet democracy of comrade Putin, or the mighty Gazprom that heats so many western European homes - yes the world would definitely be very dull without Russia.

I can with great proudness reveal that FF have also attracted the attention of mighty Russia, in the form of the fair Galina, whom after a visit back to the old mother country, graced the offices of Fortinbras' Follies with this supreme and supremely symbolic hand crafted Matryoshka doll. It consists of five dolls, from outer to inner: future president Medvedev, Tsar Putin, an almost sober Jeltsin, statesman Gorbatjov and finally a tiny cute Lenin.
We are very thankful for the gift, and will keep it right next to our geiger counter (which we from today will never switch of).

Спасибо сладкий Галина

As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!

2008-04-07T22:11:00.005+02:00

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.

Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well a malenky Natfilm postscriptum, I viddyed the newly restored version of Kubrick's sladky A Clockwork Orange with my droog yes? And it was real horrorshow like, couldn't believe me glazzes, the quality was top-notch like, like a great kick in the yarbles. Viddy it little brothers!

Natfilm 2008

2008-04-06T16:00:00.012+02:00

So the yearly Natfilmfestival is about over, and I watched three films. Last year's (isn't it great that I've been blogging so long, that I've actually accumulated blogger history?) favorite was Kim Ki-Duk's fantastic Time, and with another Ki-Duk film on the program this year, that was an obvious choice. I think the festival is great, but I also get a bit annoyed every time it's here - first why so compact? No one could possibly watch all the films they want to, and secondly, why so expensive? Again I, for one, could not possibly see all the film I wanted to, unless I really dedicated myself to it, and bought the 600 DKK watch-all-you-like pass, but then again time becomes a problem.
Anyway, guess you can't have it all, here is what I saw.

"Breath" by Kim Ki-Duk

Rating 8/10

Being a great fan of Ki-Duk, this was the only must-see film this year. I was only slightly disappointed ;) It's about a death row inmate who gets visits from a woman, who dresses the visiting room in seasons (spring, summer etc.) on each visit, and sing a song for him. It's very absurd and very funny, but not his best work.

"Timecrimes" by Nacho Vigalondo

Rating 8/10

This Spanish time travelling film, is quite ingenious. A man stumbles upon a time machine, and goes back in time, thereby making a copy of himself (Hector 2), he must then make sure that Hector 1 goes in the time machine, so he can continue to exist (and don't destroy the time-space continuum and all that). As you can imagine things get very complicated in this time loop, but things always seems to add up - it's a brilliant script (as the program says), and actually extremely funny. The American remake is on it's way (ugh). My recommendation this year.
By the way, I love that poster, very 50'ish horror flick.

"Appleseed Saga: Ex Machina" by Shinji Aramaki

Rating 7/10

Now if I was to rate this Japanese animé on the basis of it's story, I would probably give it a 1 or a 2, but thankfully I only saw this because of aesthetic reasons - and it is gorgeous. It's a mixture of 2-D and 3-D and yeah, I've never seen anything quite as technically impressive as this (not necessarily artistic). It's a great action animé, and if you get a copy with Japanese voices, don't despair - the lines are horrendous!

Ghosts

2008-03-24T22:29:00.008+01:00

I really like Nine Inch Nail's "Ghosts" project. Four albums entitled Ghosts I-IV, each with 9 songs. The songs are all instrumental, and all have a picture attached that works in collaboration with the music. The first album can be downloaded for free, all four albums can be downloaded for 5$ or bought physically at the homepage.

There's also some accompanying general photos, that I thought were so nice I'd share some of them with you.

Planet Earth

2008-03-18T13:11:00.003+01:00

Now usually I don't talk about non-fiction, reality is after all so very dreary, but I'll make an exception with this documentary showing right now on Danish television. The documentary is Planet Earth, made by BBC of course. In these times, when Danish TV seems mainly to be about programs that humiliate, degrade and stupefy, it's so very nice to see that's it's actually possible to learn from watching TV. And while learning about nature and animals, in the most beautiful and impossibly amazing shots you ever knew, you also experience a wide range of emotions from fear and repulsion to comedy and awe by this real-life drama. The series is about halfway, but if you get hooked you can always by the DVD's pretty cheaply, or even get them in glorious Blu-Ray which I plan. Another advantage of the DVD/Blu-Ray's, besides being in much better quality than TV, is that they are narrated by Sir David Attenborough himself.

DR link

Here you can buy the DVD's

Takeover

2008-03-10T00:57:00.004+01:00

This wasn't how it was meant to go! But, my recommendations is where the action is these days. It's so much easier being a critic don't you agree? Anyway, if you haven't noticed, you can get to my reviews from the top right RSS feed.
The latest review is Chinese director Wong Kar Wai's latest film - My Blueberry Nights - which features a lot of beautiful women, among them Rachel Weisz here, who also just turned 37, congratulations from FF!

The Road review

2008-02-26T08:08:00.001+01:00

I got a new review up at litteraturnu.dk, McCarthy's new Pulitzer winning book The Road. Read it here.

Everything Ends

2008-02-26T05:23:00.005+01:00

Wow

I just finished all 3376 minutes with my surrogate family - the Fishers and friends. Finished all five seasons of the HBO series Six Feet Under, created by Alan Ball (American Beauty), and I must admit it had a profound effect on my life. Really, calling it TV is almost an insult, this is a piece of art, in that it makes us question and think about such issues as death, sickness, grief, family, homosexuality, parenting - all of these huge and frightening themes, that so rarely are dared touched by any media. And this from a TV series! It's so fucking brave and beautiful, and at the same time entertaining and funny.

I can without hesitation say that this is the best series ever to come out of TV. I'll miss you.

Roskilde update

2008-02-20T14:36:00.004+01:00

Battles

Primavera might be cutting edge, but Roskilde Festival certainly aren't putting together a shabby program either. Three new names that I all wanna see have recently been announced. Most interesting is Battles who made an amazing album last year - 'Mirrored' - the pinnacle of math rock so far. But Band of Horses, with their gritty southerner rock and German The Notwist, makers of the legendary indie album 'Neon Golden' will also be excellent to hear. To bad the tickets are so freakishly expensive, gotta find a job.

Primavera

2008-02-19T00:59:00.001+01:00

Primavera Festival in Spain. They have the best program - cutting edge.

808 State, A Place To Bury Strangers, Alan Braxe, Animal Collective, Apparat Band, Dj Assault, Atlas Sound, Autolux, Awesome Color, Bill Callahan, Bishop Allen, Bob Mould Band, Bon Iver, Boris, British Sea Power, Buffalo Tom, Caribou, Cat Power, Clipse, The Cribs, De La Soul, Deerhunter, Digital Mystikz, Dinosaur Jr., Dirty Projectors, Dr. Octagon aka Kool Keith + Kutmasta Kurt, Edan & MC Dagha, El Guincho, Ellen Allien, Enon, Eric's Trip, Fanfarlo, The Felice Brothers, Fuck Buttons, Dj Funk, Gentle Music Men, The Go! Team, Grande-Marlaska, Health, Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs, Holy Fuck, It's Not Not, Kavinsky, Kinski, Les Savy Fav, Lightspeed Champion, Madee, Man Man, The Mary Onettes, Mary Weiss, The Marzipan Man, Menomena, Messer Chups, Midnight Juggernauts, Mission Of Burma, Mixmaster Mike, Model 500, MV & EE with The Golden Road, Nick Lowe, No Age, The Notwist, Okkervil River, Om, Para One, Pissed Jeans, Polvo, Port O'Brien, Portishead, Prinzhorn Dance School, Public Enemy performing It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Robert Hood, Rufus Wainwright, The Rumble Strips, Scout Niblett, Sebadoh, Shipping News, Silver Jews, Simian Mobile Disco, Six Organs Of Admittance, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, The Strange Death Of Liberal England, Subterranean Kids, Supermayer, Surkin, The Swell Season, Tachenko, Tarántula, Thomas Brinkmann, Throbbing Gristle, Tiefschwarz, Tindersticks, Träd Gräs och Stenar, Vampire Weekend, Vórtice, Voxtrot, White Williams, Why?, Young Marble Giants.

Lost again

2008-02-14T20:26:00.005+01:00

The writer's strike in America is finally over, I don't know what settlement was reached, and I'm not to interested as long as those writers get busy.
Speaking of series, I had the course cultural journalism for the first time today (seemed a pretty obvious choice for me). Our teacher, whom I also have in another course, is such a great character, and a reporter for a Danish paper. The first assignment he gave us, had the purpose of making us feel extremely uncomfortable and stressed. The assignment was to write an introduction to the series LOST, 100-200 words, in an hour. I thought that was pretty funny, since I know the series so well (just look at my last post), I guess I had a pretty big advantage - the girl next to me who didn't know it asked 'Is it the one with the polar bear?'. But advantage or no, it remains to be seen whether I produced a decent text. In every case it looks to be an interesting and challenging course - next time we're going over the interview genre, so be warned, I might come knocking on your door with a pad and pencil in hand.

Series 08

2008-02-09T17:02:00.000+01:00

After a long stagnant time - series wise - some gold nuggets are finally drifting our way. The writer's strike in USA is still on, but some shows did produce something before the strike which they are now showing. One of those is LOST season 4, of which the second episode just aired. Fans will remember the cliff-hanging ending of season 3, where instead of the usual flash-backs, we suddenly saw a revealing flash-forward. Hopefully that mystery will be solved, but I'm guessing a few other mysteries will be thrown into the mix, if I at all know my Lost. I've seen the first episode, and it was everything I hoped for.

Another HBO gem, which I've become familiar with thanks to the generosity of a friend, is SIX FEET UNDER. It's about a dysfunctional family, who runs an undertaker business (!). I've seen a couple of episodes, and I'm hooked. The characters are very believable, and the dialogue is sharp and witty. It deals with a lot of controversial issues, death and how we handle it being the most significant one, and the language is of course full of 'fucks' - the HBO trademark - and then it's just plain hilarious. The show is a couple of years old, so it can probably be found pretty cheaply.

New book review

2008-02-05T08:04:00.000+01:00

I have a new review up on litteraturnu.dk. It's about Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, which is about as good as the last one was bad - which makes it one of the best novels ever.

18-1

2008-02-04T12:24:00.000+01:00

Photos: nfl.com
Music: Explosions in the Sky
Winners: Giants
Losers: Patriots

XLII

2008-02-03T19:12:00.000+01:00

Super Bowl XLII is not far away, and I am psyched! Let's pray that pretty boy Brady looks like Jack Lambert here afterwards. Go Giants!

Sweeney Todd - a warning

2008-02-03T12:51:00.000+01:00

I realise that I'm disagreeing with every Danish reviewer when I say that, Sweeney Todd was a BORE! Now it's probably somewhat my own fault, because I really don't like musicals. 'Like' is an understatement, I freaking hate musicals. Who invented it, and why does it still exist? It's so very silly and annoying. Unfortunately I had forgotten that I hated musicals, well I actually didn't forget, but a combination of it being a Tim Burton (whom I love) film, staring Johnny Depp and Helene Bonham-Carter (two great actors) convinced me of giving musicals a second chance. And I did, until I started napping about an hour into the film. Sure the visuals were gorgeously goth, and when the actors weren't singing (which they did rather poorly) they did a half-decent job acting, but if you're not a musical fan, spare yourself the excruciating experience of this film, beds are much better for sleeping after all.

The exact same scenario occurred for me with "Moulin Rouge", I really most work on my long-term memory. I hereby promise never to watch a musical again, no matter the redeeming circumstances.

Berlin, mit hoved...

2008-01-31T02:28:00.000+01:00

The winter break is almost over, and a new semester is about to begin. I'm quite looking forward to this semester, but not as much as the next again. Because this fall I will be studying in Germany, more exact Berlin. Just got a scholarship to Technische Universität Berlin (TUB). And yeah, they do have a pretty big humanistics department, and an institute for comparative literature, so don't worry, I'm not going to be a mechanic. Don't know what exactly I'll be studying yet, but German literature seems pretty obvious, which is apparently also located in the very picturesque main building from 1846.

The university is on Strasse des 17. Juni, which is the continuation of Unter den Linden, basically just on the west side of Tiergarten. So right now I'm busy brushing up on my German, listening to my language course in my iPod a couple of hours every day. There's also a lot of red tape left to waddle through, approvals, studyplans etc. etc. but I'll manage. I'm really looking forward to it as you can tell.

"Hvordan skal jeg finde hendes læber i alt det støv?"

In other news...another great British band have been announced for this years Roskilde Festival, recently reformed shoegazer legends My Bloody Valentine. Yes!

Reviews online

2008-01-21T16:47:00.001+01:00

I've started up my new and exciting system for recommendations. From now on, you can click the title of my recommendation, which will take you to a short review I've written on a parallel blog. Clicking "All Reviews" will take you to the main page of that blog, where you can sort through old reviews by date or label (books, films, music). There's two new recommendations up, so give it a try!

BOWLS

2008-01-21T14:10:00.000+01:00

My new hobby of American Football is drawing to an end. Yesterday it was decided which two teams are going to play the Superbowl in two weeks time. I was routing for the Dallas Cowboys, don't ask me why, I just liked the team. Unfortunately they were knocked out surprisingly last weekend by the NY Giants. That left the Green Bay Packers to stop the perfect and annoying New England Patriots, who so far has won all of their 17 games. But that was not be, because last night the Giants stopped the Packers dead in their tracks, in a harrowing NFC championship game.
The Giants played well, no doubt, especially Eli Manning looked very strong. Still, it shouldn't have been to difficult for the Packers to win. But a lot of different things played against that happening, old man Favre had a good 1st half, and a terrible 2nd half. He threw 3 interceptions totally, and a lot of his throws weren't precise enough for the receivers to pick them out. RB Grant, couldn't get anywhere at all, which of course made the pass rushing that more lethal, and there was some silly play-calls, especially using the screen again and again, though it didn't work.

Burress makes a 32-yard reception

The real focus however, was Giants kicker Tymes. He missed one field goal that were potentially game winning, then he missed a definite game winning kick, with just 4 seconds left on the clock. This caused the game to go into overtime, both teams tied at 20 points. Packers won the toss, but unfortunately Favre threw his third interception, and Giants were on the ball again. They got stopped pretty far of however, and Tymes tried for his third field goal. At 47 yards, it was longer than the two he already missed, and hope was not lost, but the kick was perfects, and Tymes finally send the Giants to the Superbowl vs. the Patriots.
At least one of my favorite fantasy writers, George R. R. Martin, seems happy...

Tymes TOTALLY redeems himself with a 47-yard field goal

Indeed a strange playoff, where almost all the top-seeded teams lost, but also a lot of great great games. Now it's up to Eli and company to stop the Patriots, which I really hope they do, in Super Bowl 42.

Speaking of Bowls, the first reason I got into this sport, was a very violent version of it Games Workshop developed: Blood Bowl. I played it a bit as a kid, but took it up a little when I heard about a free online java version of it from a friend. In Blood Bowl, there's this thing called fluff. Fluff is all the things you invent around a team, that doesn't really affect anything, but makes it a lot more fun. Fluff is very important, and my friend is the master of it. Just look at the history and details of this team. It even has it own merchandise line!

If you're interested in playing, you can get started here.

Poll results

2008-01-19T22:57:00.000+01:00

OK the votes have been counted - didn't take to long to be honest - and a whopping 100 % of you, would like me to shortly state why I have put something on the Christian recommends and dislikes list. I will try to do that in the future, and if I can manage it even hyperlink the titles, so you can always see my reasons for the nomination. Meanwhile, sink your teeth into this pretty thing.

Quote of the week

2008-01-14T12:45:00.000+01:00

About the forthcoming Danish championships in masturbation:

"Både kvinder og mænd kan dyste i disciplinerne udholdenhed – hvor den internationale rekord er over otte timer – samt antal orgasmer. Hertil kommer, at mændene kan stille op i disciplinen ejakulationsradius, som Pia Struck mere prosaisk har lanceret som ’sprøjtelængde’"

From politiken.dk

Film craze

2008-01-11T02:40:00.000+01:00

I've currently on one of my film crazes, where I'm seeing a couple a films a day, both classics and new ones. To that purpose I've been using the excellent IMDB.com (International Movie Database), which has an entry on almost all films ever made, as well as a lot of lists. Unfortunately a lot of people who use IMDB are total morons (if you don't believe me try reading some of the posts on the message boards, it's one of the most funny things to do on the net), and horrible thrash from the most sickly part of Hollywood often make it to the famous top 250 list, while immortal masterpieces never get there. Recently - well just now actually - I've discovered a top 1000 list, for the viewer with good taste, like me. So if you ever need some inspiration for what to watch next, go to 'They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?' and check out their list. I've seen 47 on the top 100, 53 to go...

Here's an example from the IMDB boards:

Moron A:

As for seeing it again? Do you really think I want to waste time and money to sit through it again?????

Everyone's entitled to their opinions - but just because some of us didn't like this - it's unfair to label us as unintelligent!!!!

Moron B:

No, it's not, you are a retard, you're just not aware of the fact. Us 'intelligent' folk in an enlightened position are able to recognise this though, so just take our word for it.

This is a great quote that describes it all:

I highly doubt that it was the same cashew in his nose for months. It was just something he did to pass time.

New Design

By the way, as you may have noticed I've changed the layout of the blog. I've cleaned away all those links and labels that I suspect nobody ever uses, added a slideshow from Flickr in stead of the photo bar, moved album quilt to the left, and finally added a much needed "Christian dislikes" box - though it only has a film on it so far, some music and books will suffer the shame eventually. Let me know if somethings not showing right, or if you're missing anything. I also added a poll, just for kicks.

PS3 praise

2008-01-09T22:46:00.000+01:00

*Edited*

Jon Stewart and The Daily Show is finally back! After being off-air for a couple of months due to the writer's strike, he's back. And just in time to, his sarcastic comments on American politics are much needed, especially on the American primaries.

Screenshot: Kai and Nariko

On a totally different note, I am getting more and more happy with my Playstation 3. Finally some good games are coming out. I've been playing Heavenly Sword, an action game, very much like God of War. The graphics are absolutely stunning, some of the best I've ever seen, and the animation is also top-notch. The characters are all well developed, excellent voice- and mo-cap acting, and a sufficient story to keep one interested. The mechanics are ok, though it does get a bit repetitive at the end. Except the second lead Kai's controls, which a extremely fun. She fires a crossbow at the enemies, you can then control the bolt by moving the sixaxis controller, it's very entertaining. The lead Nariko joins the long list of video game babes, Kai isn't to bad either, in her own quirky way.

Screenshot: Nathan Drake, Hero

The other game is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. An action-adventure game. It has many of the same qualities as Heavenly Sword and more: Excellent graphics, superb animations, great acting, a good story, great music and sound, and also a very fun gameplay. A great game all and all, sorry to have finished it already.

But perhaps the most determining factor for my new found love for the PS3 is Blu-Ray. I got my Blade Runner - Final Edition, and it was absolutely spectacular. Super super crisp picture, and awesome sound - it was a blast. So much so, that I've ordered two more. The Kubric classics Full Metal Jacket and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I personally can't wait for the latter, but then I am a total sci-fi geek.

*Edit*

Almost forgot one the best parts. The PS3 allows me to 'upscale' my DVD's in a kind of simulated HD. The result is actually pretty impressive, and the difference can be clearly seen. Very cool.

Quote of the week

2008-01-04T20:22:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd share this quote with you for the weekend. It's by the famous film auteur Jean-Luc Godard about tennis star Roger Federer:

"Hans sejre interesseret mig ikke. Måske er det, der generer mig, at Federer trods alt er et menneske. Mennesket er ikke i stand til så frygteligt meget, særligt ikke i forhold til en kat. Jeg synes godt om højdespringerne, i hvert fald kvinderne. Men hvor højt springer de? Sølle to meter! En kat springer relativt set langt højere. Jeg ville ønske mig for Federer, at han sprang som en kat"

By Katja Nicodemus, Die Zeit.

2007 lists

2007-12-31T17:26:00.000+01:00

The year is drawing to an end, and it's time to make some ever-popular lists. Except in the case of books, most of the entries came out in 2007.

Books, Top 3

Haruki Murakami Norwegian Wood
George Orwell 1984
Halgrímur Helgason 101 Reykjavik

Music, Top 5

Radiohead "In Rainbows"
Deerhunter "Cryptograms"
Apparat "Walls"
The Field "From Here We Go Sublime"
Aphex Twin "Chosen Lords"

Film, Top 5

Blade Runner - The Final Edition (Scott)
Children of Men (Cuarón)
My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki)
The Darjeeling Limited (Anderson)
The Bourne Ultimatum (Greengrass)

Series, Top 3

Rome 2
Lost 3
Weeds 3

Concerts, Top 5

Low (Vega)
The National (Roskilde)
Electrelane (Roskilde)
Boris (Roskilde)
Speaker Bite Me (Spot)

Finally some funny facts:

In 2007 I...

read 36 books
saw 153 movies
saw 24 seasons of series
attended 94 concerts

Most...

read author: Haruki Murakami (4 books)
read book: Murakami "Norwegian Wood" (2 times)
seen director: Hayao Miyazaki (5 movies)
seen movie: Danny Boyle "Sunshine" (3 times)
seasons of a series: Curb Your Enthusiasm (5 season)
seen series: Rome 1 and 2 (both 2 times)
seen performer live: Good Luck Casper (3 times)

In conclusion, it's a good thing that I study culture, so I can justify this degree of consumption. Also I have excellent taste.

Soon there will be only 11 years until I can walk down the streets of dystopic Los Angeles 2019. Happy new year.

Winter wonderland

2007-12-21T00:15:00.000+01:00

I'm back home from France. Actually I have been for some days, but my arms were to sore to type anything. Never have I been so sore, I took the beating of my life on that snowboard, falling again and again on hard snow. That is not to say I didn't have a good time, in fact I had an amazing time. The pleasure when you finally managed to stay upright on the board, and actually looked like you knew what you were doing was simply indescribable. It was my first time on a skiing trip, but definitely not my last. I really like the routine of getting up early morning, go boarding all day, get totally wasted at night, repeat and repeat. The only thing stopping me is merely the tons of money it costs.

Christmas is almost here, and I'm actually in the spirit for once. I even talked to a homeless today, and a smelly one too, didn't give him any money though, you have to draw the line somewhere. My shopping is almost completed, so now I can relax, and expectantly wait to stuff my face until I'm sick, and receive a lot of new non-essential items, as the tradition dictates. Can't wait! Oh, and of course put on my only Christmassy album - Low "Christmas". Merry Christmas all.

Roskildehead

2007-12-10T04:04:00.001+01:00

The greatest band ever - Radiohead - is playing at the Roskilde Festival 2008!! Like favorite news ever. No doubt about me going now, rain or shine. I'm still listening to their latest album In Rainbows, a truly amazing album, that justs get better and better. Remember, you can still download it for a price of your choice (or free), from this homepage, and you have absolutely no reason not to. There's also a couple of concerts in the spring I'm really looking forward to, their in the post-rockish end of the musical genres. Earth, Explosions in the Sky and Eluvium will be playing, the last two at the same concert. Great stuff.

Blade Runner - The Final Edition

2007-12-08T05:10:00.000+01:00

Don't know how I missed this, but Ridley Scott have been working on a final edition of my all-time favorite sci-fi film: Blade Runner - The Final Edition. That brings the total of editions up to four. The first one was the theatrical release, which included voice-over and a happy ending, then there was a TV version, unrated with extended action scenes, and finally the "Director's Cut" version, which was hurried by the studio, and which Scott wasn't at all happy with. So to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film, Scott produced a final edition, that he has said he is very happy with. Of course picture and sound have been cleaned up, some of the special effects scenes were enhanced (like Zora's shooting), and also apparently new dialogue, new scenes, and a different ending. It's also being released in a massive collector's edition, with 5 discs. This includes all the versions of the film, a 3 1/2 hour documentary, commentaries, an unreleased work-edition of the film, and lots of other goodies. The best part is, it's being released on Blu-Ray, so in January I will be the happy owner of THE ultimate Blade Runner release, all to be enjoyed on crispy high definition, wuuu!

Speaking of films, I just saw Danny Boyle's beautiful Sunshine again (a previous recommendation). I saw it with the commentaries of the science advisor, Dr. Brian Cox, normally a physicist at CERN. It was the first time I saw an entire film with commentaries, but it was so exciting I couldn't stop. He talked a lot about what was realistic in the film, how it could be done in real life, the universe and everything else. Very exciting, highly recommended - also without the commentaries, it's a brilliant film. Damn I love sci-fi!

Evilcorp Inc.

2007-12-04T09:30:00.000+01:00

EDIT: If you're still interested in this, Gamespot released "the true" story here. I played the demo, it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't very good either.

Huh, just found out about this case, and thought it deserved to be shared. The site I have always turned to for my game reviews - Gamespot - apparently just fired journalist Jeff Gerstmann for reviewing the new IO Interactive game Kane & Lynch very poorly. Before the review was up, the Gamespot frontpage was plastered in Kane & Lynch commercials, after the review they were removed, the video review was removed from the homepage, and Gerstmann was fired. They've released a statement denying these facts, but no one really believes them. If it's true, it's first of all appaling naturally, and secondly gives rise to speculation on how much commercial interests influence reviews in general.

Danish article about the case

Gamespot's official statement

The written review

Below follows the video review - removed from Gamespot but still available on youtube.

Book review

2007-12-03T08:28:00.000+01:00

I've started reviewing books for the site Litteraturnu.dk. My first review is about a very very bad book, which I'm not very nice to. Check it out, it's on the frontpage baby.

EDIT. There was a slight miscommunication, the review will be up tomorrow - Tuesday.

Ups and downs

2007-11-26T06:11:00.000+01:00

Ahhh finally got my hands on Guitar Hero 3. Me and a friend both bought it, took a lot of drugs, and played until our fingers bled - it was a good day. There is a lot of great songs it, and a lot of shitty ones, so a pretty standard Guitar Hero edition. See the total list here.
My favourite right now is Metallica "One". Awesome old-school Metallica (back when they didn't suck). I'm trying hard to nail the solo at the end, which is insane - now I'm talking medium difficulty level here of course. The hard and expert settings are just ridiculous. Take a look at this - One on expert level. Try skipping forward to around 6 minutes to see the solo.

I really hope I never get this good...

One of the better things about GH3 is that there will be new songs that you can download over xbox live. Already there is some new tracks by Foo Fighters and Velvet Revolver. So yesterday, I though I'd just see how it works, but my Live account wouldn't work. With a kinda hysteric anxiety I checked my connection, and yes! I had been banned from xbox live - due to "breach of violations" - Damn you Microsoft!! I had over 4000 gamer points, and I spend weeks, getting all the achievements for Bioshock. Now I really now how the Führer-cat felt...

Sob...

Since it is impossible to lift the ban as of yet - there is no other recourse than to purchase a second clean xbox. Christ...how did it get this far.

Granada epilogue

2007-11-21T04:31:00.000+01:00

Finally I got my pictures from Granada uploaded. They're not very representative for our trip, since 60% of our time was spent drinking, and 20% sleeping, but here they are nonetheless, take a look.

The more things stay the same, the more they stay the same - could have been the motto for the elections that came and went in DK. everything is back to normal in the kingdom of Denmark, i.e. that horrible mutant called VOK! (shout it!), still breathes and ravages the land.
Well who cares really, what I'm more worried about is the writers guild strike in America. Already The Daily Show has been cancelled for the moment, and series such as Lost and Battlestar Galactica are in jeopardy! Wake up people, we're facing a catastrophe here!

Otherwise not much happening, I've quit my job at the church thingy. I discovered they where all religious, HA! Poor saps. Also exam time is here, actually it's been here for a while, I hope I realize that soon.

<3 sci-fi

2007-11-09T03:44:00.000+01:00

Hello dear readers. Sorry I've been out for a while, actually I was in Spain visiting a friend, and had an excellent time, I will tell you more about it when I look through the photos I took there. What I mean to tell you now is a hot tip, and some bragging (yes more inanimate objects). The tip goes out to all the Battlestar Galactica fans, and if you aren't it's not to late to start. Yes I know season three was bad, very bad. Actually it was pressure from the sci-fi channel, they wanted to make the series more accessible to new viewers, therefore they wanted a lot of stand-alone episodes, instead of continuing the brilliant story arc (geesh what morons). Fortunately and obviously ratings dropped like a nuke on Caprica, and so the series creators have been given free hands again to continue the story arc without further interference from dim-witted studio executives, read: scum. The fourth, and recently announced final, season is unfortunately still a bit away. It will probably start airing in April 2008. BUT, and here finally the tip, a TV movie has been made called Razor to ease the waiting. It depicts the the past of Battlestar Pegasus, and some of the things that happened after Lee took command of it. While it doesn't advance the story arc, it certainly isn't just pure filler either. It somewhat explains Admiral Cain's motivations, and in the end of the film you don't hate her guts quite so much. Also she and Balzar seem's to share a taste in women *wink wink*. Most importantly it mixes serious, mature content, ethical dilemmas with good frakkin cool space combat! In short, highly recommended.

Rear Admiral Cain - evil incarnate or misunderstood lesbian?

And now the bragging; While I can't really afford it, and owe tons of people (mainly my family thank God - keeps the broken knee ration down), I just bought the missing console in my collection - Nintendo Wii!

Nah, just kidding. I just lend it from a friend of mine. I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and I must say I'm hooked. The the wii remote and nuunchuk are so awesome. I also borrowed the best multiplayer game to date: Warioware - Smooth Moves. You HAVE to see it. Come play with me.

Also, I really think the Colts should have won.

Moor Country

2007-11-01T13:04:00.000+01:00

My photos from Iceland Airwaves are now up on Diskant.dk, see them and Louise's article here.

Also, in about three hours I'm once again going abroad, this time south and a hotter latitude than Iceland, namely Granada in Spain. A friend of mine studies Arabian poetry at the university there, and together with two other friends of mine, I'll spend some days in his and the sun's company. Oh what luxury! So long.

Victory Post

2007-10-29T00:20:00.000+01:00

I just finished George Orwell's classic book "1984", and it totally blew me away. It's reputation is well deserved, it's up there with the best of them. It will forever be part of me, and every time someone mentions more surveillance or uses newspeech terms such as "Freedom Fries" or "Surgical Strike", I will think of the Winston Smith and resist. It's themes on surveillance and totalitarian rule are extremely relevant topics in our age, when governments uses fear of terror to pass laws that violates personal freedom, such as our own government, who will thankfully soon be overthrown. I recommend it to everyone, one of the scariest and most important books I've ever read.

Me this December

2007-10-27T14:05:00.000+02:00

Dilemma

2007-10-25T01:29:00.000+02:00

I'm in quite a pickle (does anyone actually say that?). One of the places I work have invited me to France for three days in December, on a combined skiing trip/Christmas lunch kind of thing - all expenses paid (!!!!!!!). Normally this would only call for miliseconds of consideration, I mean, I love free stuff! The problem is, that the day before we fly, I'm handed out exam questions for one of my courses, which I then have to answer and hand in a week later. Now, the course is extremely uninteresting (It's compulsory), and I have no ambition to make an especially good paper in it, since I've rarely attended and haven't really read anything for it. But I would like to pass however. On the other hand I've never tried skiing and would love to do so, of course I don't have any of very expensive gear you need, but I'm pretty sure I could lend it from friends. What do I do?

fjogh

2007-10-24T14:07:00.000+02:00

Oh yes! Finally elections, fuck of nazi government. In the words of Zack de la Rocha: "Wake up".

Airwaves aftermath

2007-10-23T22:18:00.001+02:00

Ok, I've almost recovered after a week of cold Viking and Thule beers, and looked through my photos. Here's a little selection from some of the concerts I went too. I was so fortunate to get a press pass, so I was able to go in the famous photo grave and get really close - though it was still a bitch too push too the throng around stage. Some of these will hopefully be published on the Danish music site diskant.dk and maybe 12 Tónar's homepage, I'll let you know in either case. Also if you want to see more of my photos, they're as always on my flickr page here.

Mugison and Pétur Ben live in Danish Radio

Singapore Sling in 12 Tónar

Trentemøller featuring Mikael Simpson

Snake and Jet's Amazing Bullit Band in 12 Tónar

Deerhoof

Of Montreal

!!!

Lali Puna

Also I highly recommend this Icelandic artist called Dagsson, I bought one of his books in Reykjavik. He does very simple stick men cartoons, that are totally dark and politically uncorrect, and fucking hilarious. Judge for yourself. www.dagsson.com.

No love lost

2007-10-22T21:28:00.000+02:00

I'm back in Copenhagen. Lost the wifi in my guesthouse, and didn't really felt like blogging from a café again. Anyway I'll do a big after Airwaves report soon, maybe tonight. By the way I got to see Grant Gee's new Joy Division documentary, it was very good! No life in the house of dolls....bep.

Fear and loathing

2007-10-19T17:10:00.000+02:00

Weird day yesterday. Danish radio program "De Sorte Spejdere", hosted by Anders Lund Madsen, are covering the festival this year, and decided to set up shop in 12 Tónar's basement. I'm glad I'm not doing live radio, that is one hectic job. But it was fun the watch, at least for a little while.

De Sorte Spejdere interviewing a singer called Öluf, her voice sound like Joanna Newson's

Later American Khonnor played a very dronish set at the store, a little taster of the evenings official concert. We then wen't to one of the media parties, the Take-Off party, a little out of town. Airport was the theme, with lots of pretty blonde stewardesses, and drink and food unlimited. Press people are not really the most interesting people, but it was a good start for a night of partying and music.
Unfortunately that was not to be for me, because after seeing Jenny Wilson - man that music is such a bore! - I stopped briefly at my room, for some regrouping, and fell asleep. I woke up past midnight, having missed the Grizzly Bear concert, and hurried out to catch the last of Khonnor, but unluckily in my hurry I forgot my key, and so was locked out of my room.

Swedish singer Jenny Wilson - yawn!

I spend a good 45 minutes getting into my room again, this included calling up people with the name Gunnar Gunnarsson - the name of the hotel manager - and knocking on doors near the guesthouse, where a Gunnar Gunnarsson lived. This caused a lot of angry Gunnars around Reykjavik, until finally I rang on the front door of the guesthouse, waking up the cooking lady, and finally gaining access to my room. So obvious really...but when I had settled that, everything was pretty much closed, so I decided to get back to bed, where I guess I should have stayed in the first place.

Jenny and band

Tonight, however is not a time for sleeping. A truckload of bands that I want to see are playing, unfortunately a lot of them at the same time. Singapore Sling, Snake & Jet's Amazin Bullit Band, Múm, Deerhoof, The Tremelo Beer Gut, Of Montreal, Loney, Dear and Trentemøller. There's is also a private cocktail party that the label Crunchy Frog is having, that we got invites for. So It's gonna be busy busy, we'll see how much I get to hear.

Take-off

2007-10-18T17:20:00.000+02:00

15.20 Airwaves Information, Hresso, Reykjavik

Connected to Hive-Hresso

Second day of Airwaves, and the program is really taking of. Yesterday was dedicated to local Icelandic talent, today a few of the international names will play, among them Grizzly Bear (US), Khonnor (US) and Jenny Wilson (SE). Yesterday, I saw a few shows in the 12 Tonár store, and a couple of concert around town. The best of the evening where the American girl band Smoosh, the three girls in it are all sisters, and aged 11, 13 and 15. Their music really wasn't that interesting, but just the setup of these teen and pre-teen girls was fun, and they did one hell of a cover of a Bloc Party song. I met Anton Newcomb (The Brian Jonestown Massacre), sitting in the same chair in 12 Tónar as this summer. He seems to have aged 10 years, and is amazingly even more paranoid and aggressive, he's such a wanker.

Otherwise there wasn't really that much interesting, there was an ok post-rock band, but that was also pretty much it. Today Louise is going to try to Interview Khonnor - apparently he's extremely shy, and I'm going to take pictures of him, which probably won't help about the shyness.

Wish you where here, send more money.

sub-zero

2007-10-17T11:12:00.000+02:00

Isafold, Reykjavik 9.06

Damn it's cold here! Freezing, which combined the non-smoking laws, means I don't smoke much. Yesterday, we met at Kaffibarin and had a few drinks. They were playing a lot of Pixies and the new Radiohead, which more or less gives them eternal respect in my book. Later we ended up at Boston (the bar in Reykjavik, not the American city), where we among other semi-celebs saw the Icelandic producer Valgier Sigurdsson, who amongst other things produced some records for Björk and the new CocoRosie album. The town is still pretty dead, although the Festival starts today. The program today however, doesn't include one band I've ever heard of before, that is why we're going to a private party at the 12 Tonár big boss' place, with free food and drink, and lots of semi-celebs. Man, I love free stuff! Until then, I'll just chill, maybe watch a film, until I'm meeting the others downtown at noon.

Lulu, Wouter, Jassie, Atla and Naka at Kaffibarin last night

Reykjavik

2007-10-16T19:24:00.000+02:00

17.25 UTC Guesthouse Ísafold, Reykjavik

Connected to "Isafold", 1-2 bar reception

Some ham and mashed potatoes later, I find myself in Reykjavik, after a painless and uneventful journey. Well I did get stopped in customs, no I am not a terrorist. The room is pretty nice, and the guesthouse is just a couple of minutes away from the center. Where I'll be heading now, for some coffee and maybe a bite. My friends are on their way, and should be here in about an hour and a half.

1300cph

2007-10-16T19:22:00.000+02:00

1300 CET Copenhagen Airport

"None of your thrusted networks are available, would you like to join CPH?" - "Yes" - "30 minutes, 40 kr" - "STFU!"

Well nothing is free in this world, though the internet should be, greedy bastards. I'm here at the airport waiting to board a plane to Reykjavik, Iceland. Yup, back to the island. I'm going to the music festival Iceland Airwaves, which features a number of cool bands. It's not all fun and games though, I'm also going to work while I'm there. That is, I'm going to take photos for an article a friend is writing, so actually it is all fun and games. I stocked up on fags, and bought a bottle of Jack Daniels, since everything fun is hella expensive on Iceland. The festival starts tomorrow, hopefully tonight I'll meet up with some friends who have been spending a week together in the north. Now I really have to find someplace to smoke, before I have to board. I will upload this the next time there is free wifi, which is probably in Reykjavik. All I need now is a samoan lawyer, and a trunk full of drugs...guns would be good too.