A child was born in Bethlehem

Many children were born in Bethlehem. Jesus was not one of them. He was most likely born in Nazareth (but he didn't play in the band). However, some prophecies from the Old Testament (Isaiah 11:1.10, Micah 5:2) said that Messiah should be an ancestor of King David, born in Bethlehem.

So in the Christmas Gospel they invented the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to make the story fit. And tomorrow we're celebrating this fairytale. Just like we do every year. I'm not looking forward to it.

Christmas always makes me depressed. The whole damn thing. Usually I spend the last three months of the year dreading Christmas. The worst part is the materialistic orgy of Christmas gifts. Whenever I'm asked what I wish for Christmas, I say "nothing". I hope this year that I will get it.

I'm longing for January. In the meantime, we can appreciate that days are getting longer. Happy winter solstice >:)

(I found this picture on the Internet some years ago. I don't remember where I found it and who made it, unfortunately. Otherwise I would have credited the artist. Great work.)

Two elderly people yelling at each other

I've been following the US election with interest, as usual. The American political fauna is somewhat weird. It's like a zoo with only tigers and lions. In practice there's only right wing and ultra-right wing candidates.

The ultra right GOP has now become more like populist right, similar to the Front National in France, UKIP in Great Britain ad Forza Italia.

There's no socialist party, no social democrats (except Bernie Sanders), and no left-wing radicals. Maybe they exist, but they are very marginalized (like Gary Johnson and Jill Stein).

This year the election is very discouraging. Two elderly people yelling at each other. I hope the younger American generations will come up with something better in the future.

It's scary that Donald Trump may actually become the President of USA. He appears to be totally incompetent for the job. He hasn't even admitted to respect the election result, unless he wins. I hope it was a joke. But this reminds me of certain leaders from the history books, the kind of leaders we wouldn't like to come back.

Just imagine a world ruled by Trump and Putin. Sounds surreal, like a crazy joke, but holy shit, it may become true.

Hillary Clinton is maybe not the best candidate either (Bernie was my favorite). There's too much shady business going on, in the Clinton Foundation and with her Wall Street buddies.  It reminds me of the quote by Otto von Bismarck: "No one should see how politics and sausages are made".

Hilary Clinton is at least competent for the job, very competent. Maybe she doesn't know much about mail servers, but she knows how to deal with the political systems around the world. That's more important for a president.

(Cartoon from the internet, made by Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette )

East Berlin

I just came back from a long-weekend in Germany. Little boy and I went to Berlin to visit older boy, who is in Berlin for an internship this fall. We didn’t visit any of the conventional tourist attractions, except the Reichstag building, the parliament, from where Germany (and Greece) are being ruled. Most of the time we spent in East Berlin, the former Soviet sector.

We went to a suburb east of the city center to watch a football (soccer of course) game with FC Union in 2. Bundesliga. The game wasn’t too good, but it was really cool to be on the packed stand with 20.000 crazy people. The red shirts of FC Union bear a witness of the working-class background of the club. The supporters called their team Eisern Union (Iron Union). We were surrounded by factory workers who enjoyed their free weekend, and unemployed craftsmen who lost their jobs to the Polish and Lithuanians who do their work for a lower price. Citizens of the European Union.

Near the tram station in Warschauer Strasse (Warsaw Street), we passed a homeless young man sitting on the side walk with his sleeping bag and a filthy dog. In front of him, he had three cups labeled “food”, “weed” and “BMW”. In the “food” cup there were some coins, the other two were almost empty. I dropped 2 Euro in the “weed” cup and 3 Euro in his “BMW” cup. Homeless people have dreams for the future too. And in the meantime some weed may be good for the comport, in the brutal capitalist world.

At night we went to concerts in small obscure clubs in old East German industry buildings, to enjoy Berlin’s underground music scene. The beer was good, and people were nice and friendly. Some bands were good, some not so good. The lead guitar player in one of the garage-rock bands was a 48 yo professor at Humboldt University. He performed under a stage-name/pseudonym to avoid mixing business and pleasure. I immediately felt a connection with him; a guy with a PhD and some obscure and secret cultural interests on the side.

It was good to get away for a while. Nobody yelling at me. Nobody asking me difficult questions. Nobody interrogating me about scary thoughts in the darkest corners of my soul. It was a true feeling of freedom, for a while >:)

(Some pictures taken in Berlin, RAW Gelande, former train repair station and now subcultural center (top), football game with FC Union (2nd), East Berlin's famous Ampfelmann (3rd), and garage rock concert (bottom). The Humboldt professor is the guitar player to the right. Fortunately, the picture is to unfocused to see his face.)

Question of the Month: What’s a decision you’ve made in the past ... ?

The question of the month is:

"What's a decision you've made in the past that you know, logically, was the right decision to make, but witch you still feel guilty and regretful about"

That's an interesting question, and also a scary one, because it's an existential question.

The world and our lives have no essential meaning. It's up to us to fill our lives with meaning, and we have the freedom to do this. This freedom isn't only good, because the freedom of choice leads to angst of making irresponsible or wrong choices.

The French-Algerian Nobel Prize winning author and existentialist philosopher Albert Camus once said:

"The only serious question in life is weather to kill yourself or not"

That's probably true. I've been considering this a couple of times, and come to the decision not to. I don't know if it was the right decision, but I don't regret it.

So that's probably not an answer to the Question of the Month. What else could I bring up?  Should I leave the country? Should I leave my wife? Should I ever have gotten married? I don't know, and I don't think I care  to answer. I only now what what is logically right, but I don't know if I would regret it >:)

(A selfie from my archives. Skiing season is not too far away. It's one of the tings I do to bring meaning to my meaningless life. The skis in the picture were awesome. Unfortunately, I don't have them anymore. They were stolen outside the restaurant when I was eating lunch.) 

Writing course

Last weekend I attended a course on writing. It was really cool. I learnt a lot, and got to know some fellow hobby writers. The course instructor was a professional author, who had published plays, poetry and children's books.

In the course, we learnt to exploit all our senses in the writing, we learnt to observe and describe people and situations, and to write better about feelings. We had some good discussions on what we had written in the exercises. Maybe I will post some of my snippets later.

To my surprise, I was the only man in the course. The rest of the participants were women, age 20 to 75. I don't no why there were no other men. Maybe men don't write, or maybe they believe they have nothing to learn. I have >:)

(Picture taken Sunday morning when I was walking to town to attend the second day of the writing course)

Question of the Month: Which kind of music best speaks to you?

We're half way through September already, and there's a new question from Michael G D'Agostino at A Life Examined to be answered. The question of the month is:

"Which kind of music best speaks to you?"

I like many types of music, from Italian opera to Tom Waits. But my favorite type of music is black metal, in particular the classic songs and albums from the 1990s.  I'm thinking of bands like Satyricon, Gorgoroth, Taake and Mayhem.

Black metal, with it's sludgy guitar sound, fast blast drumming and somewhat harsh vocal style, that's the kind of music that make me relax. The song structure is often unconventional, with speed changes, and melodic guitar riffs.

Black metal concerts are way to rare in my home town. But this weekend, Mayhem is coming to town. I've bought tickets for the concert of course. I hope they will play some of the good old stuff. My favorite is Freezing Moon, the original recording with Dead on vocals.

The early black meal albums were recorded with cheep equipment in dark garages and musty basements. That's part of the charm with these old recordings.

In more recent times, some of the black metal bands were signed by big record labels, like Nuclear Blast. Dimmu Borgir even played live with a full symphony orchestra and choir. The concert was aired by the national broadcasting. That's cool of course, but the good old songs are still the best >:)

(Picture from my archives, taken some years ago when Mayhem played live at town square in my hometown on a light mid-summer night.)

Weapon of self destruction

Fear

            is to go where you don’t want to go

is to be where you don’t want to be

is to say what you don’t want to say

is to do what you don’t want to do

Fear

            is a weapon of self destruction

(Just a picture from my archives, taken on a late scary summer night many years ago, I think)

Satan's coffee

During the summer vacation, we happened to visit Satan's Coffee Corner. It's true, it really exists, and even has four stars on TripAdvisor.

I liked the atmosphere, and the smell of burning souls, or maybe it was Spanish coffee. Unfortunately, we came in 5 minutes before closing time. So, I ordered a double espresso to go. The coffee was excellent, with sweet smell and strong and bitter taste. Satan knows how to make coffee.

Before we left, I took a picture with my cell phone. I don't know who the girls in the picture are. I don't know if they were tourists or locals. They were just sitting there on a bench waiting for something. Maybe they were waiting in line to go to Hell, or maybe they were just waiting for their coffee.

Who knows. Maybe I should try to join them >:)

Question of the Month: What's your favorite beach?

The question of the month for August from Michael G D'Agostino at A Life Examined was, simply:

"What's your favorite beach?"

I'm somewhat late for this one, since I was on vacation, on the beach. Actually, most of my vacation I was other places, in th mountains for instance, but at least some of the time I spent on the beach.

Living in Winterland, I'm not much of a beach guy. I spend a lot more time in the snow, which serves the same purpose; recreation. So, I can't really say that I have a favorite beach. Any beach is good for me. It's more important that I have something to read. My favorite book to bring to the beach is The Gambler by Dostoyevsky.

This year, by the way, I noticed that topless sun bating is coming back, at least in Catalonia. That's nice, in particular if I have forgotten to bring a good book >:)

(Picture from my archives, taken a couple of years ago. Sometimes the snow looks like a beach, kind of)

Question of the Month: What was the first book you really fell in love with?

The question of the month for July from Michael G D'Agostino at A Life Examined was as follows:

"What was the first book (or book series) you really fell in love with?"

I don’t’ fall in love with books, and hardly anything else either. Both love and hate are outside my normal range of feelings.  

I’ve been reading a Hell of a lot of books over the years. The first book series that I got really hooked on was The Hardy Boys.

This won’t get me much cred among the literature feinsmeckers, I know. The Hardy Boys is a crappy book series, written by ghost writers.  My excuse is that I was quite young, about 8 years old. I read all the Hardy books, there were about 70 of them at that time.  Then I had to continue with something else; western series, Maclean, Bagley, Forsythe and so on.

Then, when I was in high school, I discovered Dostoyevsky, which was really cool stuff. I read all his books that I could find, and even walked around half of St. Petersburg (Leningrad at that time) to visit Dostoyevsky’s apartment, which is now a museum.

In the recent years, I have found a new favorite author, the French rebel Michel Houellebecq. So that’s about where I am now.

(Picture taken some time ago in the mountains, trout fishing on a late night in June. The weather is good and it's time for vacation. So long.)

Fuck Denmark

Some time ago I happened to visit the Faroe Islands. The rocky basalt islands are covered by green grass, and inhabited by 50.000 people and twice as many sheep. The nature is awesome, with some and some spectacular places.

The Faroe Islands are part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Since 1948 the Faroes have enjoyed the high degree of self governance, but they are still under Danish rule in many respects, such as foreign policy. Today the Danish rule is quite mild, but it hasn't always been like that. Throughout history, the Faroe Islands have been treated pretty much as a Danish colony.

On the top of a small hill in Torshavn, there is a basalt obelisk, erected in the late 1800s, to celebrate the visit of the Danish king. I heard that some people accept the monument, and some people dislike it. I was disappointed to see that the obelisk was so clean and untouched. Send some young punks or students up there to decorate the obelisk with some "Fuck Denmark" graffiti, at least.

BTW, I have nothing against Denmark. Copenhagen is a great city >:)

(Pictures taken at Faroe islands a month ago)

Question of the Month: Where would you like to go next?

I signed up for the "Question of the Month" hosted by Michael G D'Agostino at A Life Examined. Actually, I signed up some months ago, but there were some questions I couldn't answer, and some I didn't want to answer, so I start this month.

The question of the month is

"Of all the places in the world to which you haven't been, where would you like to go next?"

That's a nice question, in particular since I'm sitting in the Copenhagen airport in transit while writing this.

I'm grown up in the north, and lived most of my life in the northern part of Europe. The north, with dark snowy winters and light summers, is where I belong. I've been to some really awesome places in the north, such as this Arctic magic.

Right now, I'm on the way to Iceland, which is a really cool place. It's one of the few places where you can stand on a crustal plate boundary, with one foot on the Eurasian plate and one on the American plate.

But to answer the question; the place I would really like to go, kind of an unrealistic dream, is down south. What I have in mind is Antarctica. The preferred time to go there would be December or January, when days are short and dark in the north, and the midnight sun shines in Antarctica.

I could follow the Arctic tern, this little gray bird, with a black cap and red beak, which has the most amazing annual migration route, living in the Arctic during northern summer (I've seen them in the Arctic), and then flying around the world to Antarctica, for the southern summer. That's really cool.

(I didn't get to finish this post before we had to board the plane, and I have now arrived in Iceland. I checked in to the hotel and went for a walk in the town where we're staying. The picture above was taken 15 minutes ago,)

Confirmation and cancellation

Little boy just turned 15, and just did his confirmation. He chose the secular civil confirmation rather than the Christian one. I'm quite happy about that. Apparently, I've done a decent job raising the kids in a atheist and humanist kind of spirit.

The preparation for the civil confirmation includes a course provided by a humanist organization. The course emphasizes ethics and critical thinking. Very good. Critical thinking is what all kids should learn. Don't accept old dogmatic truths.

I think the term coming-of -age ceremony is better than civil confirmation. Unlike the Christian confirmation, there is nothing being conformed. It's rather a kind of cancellation, rejecting all the religious nonsense associated with baptism.

(Picture taken last summer, on a farm with the ruins of an old monastery from the 13th century. The farm has a micro-brewery which makes very good beer. On the wall inside the farm house I read this quote by Martin Luther:  "It's better to think of church in the ale-house (bierstube) than to think of the ale-house in church.")

Who would Jesus vote for?

I'm following the American presidential election with great interest, as always. Recently I read about a guy named Glenn Beck who claims that God wants Ted Cruz to win.

I wonder if this was before or after we got to know about the five mistresses. Probably it doesn't matter. The omniscient and almighty God of course knew about the mistresses all the time.

So we may conclude that God is happy with this. It's fine with me too; most important is that the president is able to run the government.

I wonder who Jesus would vote for. Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio or Ben Carson?

I'm an Atheist, but I still remember many stories that we read about Jesus in Christianity class in elementary school. My picture of Jesus is a man who cared for the poor and the sick, and dishonored the rich and greedy. Remember the story about the poor guy Lazarus who died and was brought back to life. And then there is the parable about the rich man who stored all his wealth in a big barn for his private consumption (Luke 12:16-21):

"So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God"

I bet Jesus would vote for Bernie Sanders >:)

(I didn't have a picture of Jesus on my computer, but I found this one on Wikipedia: Sermon on the mount by Carl Bloch)

No country for old men

It's been snowing like crazy for days now. In the forest there's  a foot of powder.  The branches of the birch trees are bending under the weight of the snow.

This morning I joined little boy and his buddy in the off piste.  Little boy moves  like a ballet dancer on his fat skis, zig-zag between the birch poles.  For me it got too technically difficult; too steep and too dense forest. After two runs I was totally exhausted. This was no country for old men.

I took a break, with a cup of coffee and a cold raspberry juice.  Then I went looking for some easier powder, more suitable for an old man like me. Found it and had a good time in the white gold >:)

P'S.  I borrowed the title of the post from the book by Cormac McCarthy.  Great book by the way.

(Picture taken in the birch forest today.)

Twelve inches is one foot

We got a lot of snow last night, and it continued to snow during the day. It's 12 inches now, or one foot.  Maybe it's some kind of magic hidden in the snow, or just a hint about Easter is coming up soon, a reminder about the 12 disciples, and the one and only God, who happens to be three. 

Never mind. Logic reasoning has never been an issue for the priests. Just accept the old humbug. God acts in mysterious ways. Reasoning is the enemy of faith, Martin Luther said >:)

But we're free to make our own choice, and my choice is logic reasoning. Twelve is twelve and one is one.  A foot of snow is always great,  the white gold, powder day tomorrow, when the low clouds and the fog is gone. No friends on powder days, an no gods neither >:)

(It was white-out on the slopes today. I didn't bother to take any pictures because there was nothing to take pictures of. I post an old selfie instead, taken some time ago on a nice sunny day. I just wrote this shit on my cell phone while drinking coffee and waiting for little boy to show up. Sorry about that)

Houses of God and cheese and imperial stout

I've been a little bit sick lately, so we didn't go skiing in the mountains this weekend. Today I went for a walk downtown, to return some books to the public library.  The sun was shining, and it was a nice day for walking. Apparently many people thought the same, because the streets were crowded. There were tall people and short people, skinny people and fat people. All of them carrying bags and backpacks with stuff they had bought.

I took a quick tour around downtown. I visited a shop were I bought a camembert cheese, produced by a local farm. Then, in a different store, I bought a bottle of porter and an imperial stout. The porter was from the town were i live now. The imperial stout was imported, brewed in Denver, Colorado, were I lived for a while in the past. It was a great place to live, by the way.

On the way back home, I passed by the old cathedral. On the other side of the street, the Catholics are building a new church. God is absent in both places. He's just a product of human fantasy, unlike the cheese and the beer I bought, which are real.

The old cathedral was Catholic too, from the time it was built 900 years ago, until the last arch bishop fled from the reformation in the 16th century. Now the Catholics are back. That's fine with me. I just wonder why they have to build a new church. We have plenty of churches already. In most of them both the congregation and God are absent. We could rather have given the Catholics one of the existing churches, giving back some of the property they lost in the reformation.

(Picture taken on my walk today. The old cathedral to the right, the new Catholic church, with the scaffolds, to the left). 

Got snow

Many years ago, when he boys were small, I used to ski a lot in our local ski slope. I took the boys to practice in the ski club after school. in the beginning, I had to ski with them, to help them with the lift, and stuff like that. It was fun, and I learned many things from listening to the coaches. Later, when the boys grew older, they didn't need my help anymore, and I was tired of skiing the same old slopes every week.

The last years, I have done my skiing on the weekends in a much bigger resort. When driving little boy (who is not a little boy anymore) to the ski practice, I just sit in the cafe with my computer, working or reading stuff. But this week, I made an exception. Recently, we have got a lot of snow, the white gold. The conditions on our local slopes are excellent. So this week, I brought my skis, on both the evening practice, and this weekend. It was fun to ski the good slopes again. I did all of them, one after the other. Today I had a great day of skiing together with my best friend. Very good >:)

(Picture taken today, from the patio outside the cafe, in the lunch break)

Another day on fat skis

We have got plenty of snow the last week.  This weekend the snow continues to fall. Today I have another day on the fat skis, in the powder,  off piste.  I listen to an audio book on the lift,  "My Struggle" by Knausgård. I'm almost through the first 5 volumes now.  Very good books. Recommended. 

I'm alone, just by myself.  That's great. I like the loneliness in the sparse  birch forest.  It's not that I dislike people, but I need to spend time alone, to relax and get away from all the expectations. That's what powder days are for >:)

( Picture taken 20 minutes ago. I wrote this post on my cell phone )