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.)

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 >:)

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)

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 )