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.)