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,)