Toothpaste Stays Striped

So, I have been working in the investment banking department of a bank here in Stockholm for a week now. It has been rather tiring, although I guess that could be expected. The time I spent in the office was 70 hours or so, which is approximately the workload I had guessed in advance. However, I had not really anticipated how little leisure time that means. I pity the friend who works 100 hour weeks in London, really. I can only imagine.

On another note, I now know how the toothpaste stays striped! Really, is that not funky? I somehow expect a Dinosaur Comics about it. Read Dinosaur Comics. You must.

I now have two months left as an IBD intern. After that I will either have a very nice job and no spare time, or no job and a very nice spare time. Either way, this summer I have a thesis to write and hopefully enough money to go on vacation in distant lands for a week or two.

Smoked Liquorice

Though it might seem a bit greekish, I was just ambling around Studentpalatset (The Student Palace) for a bit. It is a pretty nice building, but horribly space inefficient. That, and the group study rooms are stale.

It is a bit weird. The latte (with taste of nuts, and price to match) I drank today cost me as much as these books by Dan Andersson, Göran Tunström and C J L Almqvist - authors who are, I believe, not very well-known outside Sweden. Mmm... books! I also got this horrid Versace tie dirt cheap, for the sole purpose of selling it on eBay. It is one of very few Versace ties I have seen that I have really disliked.

A friend of mine got promotional samples of these sugar-free liquorice pastilles. He gave me a batch, because he thought they were a bit iffy. I really liked the "smoked liquorice" (which, strangely enough, tasted just like liquorice that has been smoked), but the "orange peel liquorice" probably came out of the bad end of a monkey.

Time for Exams

The fact that I am studying for two of my remaining three exams has led to a lack of updates recently. I will, however, make up for it with a few pictures of the Stockholm School of Economics.








Please note that Sweden has not been invaded, there was just a diplomatic event of some sort going on.

In other news, I just finished The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster, and while I really liked it, I was a bit miffed by the ending.

This prompted me to go buy some new books. I came home with Strindberg, Leonov (Леонов), Boye and Nabokov (Набо́ков). Right now, I am reading Lolita, which I like and dislike at the same time. Like, because I really, really like the author's style and the ways in which he describes the protagonist. Dislike, because I find the story in itself rather trite. I picked up the book in Swedish (I found it used for €1) but later found that the original language is actually English, so I might as well have read it untranslated. C'est la vie.

I sat in a classroom studying yesterday, and I rather liked finding this door.

Mmm... Happy coffee!

King Rat! (More Pictures)

I have been sitting still far too much recently. Studying, working and whatnot. When the sun finally deigned to show itself, I rushed out for a walk.

There is not much winter left, thanks to the above-normal temperatures the last few weeks. The ice flows freely in the Stockholm stream these days, and the birds seem pretty happy.

Swedish youths, however, were not, due to the controversy about the youth house in Copenhagen. To be honest, I have not been following the issue very thoroughly, but it seems like it warranted a demonstration outside NK.

And in the Old Town, close to the Parliament, there was an anti-Guantanamo demonstration. The effect was somewhat marred by the fact that three "prisoners" stood a few metres away, chatting and sipping hot cocoa, their black hoods pulled back.

It is not rare to spot animals in Stockholm, but sometimes they surprise me. I found this one running around the streets of Södermalm in broad daylight, trying to eat a cigarette butt and almost getting hit by cars. The consensus was that it was either a runaway pet or mentally deranged. Either way, I managed to catch it.

It had to live in a paper bag for an hour or so, until we came up with a good solution to our new rat problem.

The solution included me travelling south with the underground train, the tiny animal safe within a box labeled "Spenat 5/3" which we got from a café.

In a suburb of Stockholm, the newly named Spenat (which is Swedish for spinach) seemed rather happy in his/her giant cage, which happened to be lying around. There was eating, drinking, chewing and, after a while, sleeping. Spenat will be taken to a vet sometime next week so that we can assess whether it is some kind of mouse or a baby rat, and whether it carries the bubonic plague or not.

There was partying last night, and the interior of this club (just this corner, though) really looks like it is straight out of a low-budget vampire movie. The get-together for evil people named Vlad, Grocko and Razputinija. It is not, however. It is called Teatron, and it is quite nice at times.

Grisly

A bit later than most others, I just watched El Laberinto del Fauno (I have no idea where the "Pan" translation comes from) at the movie theatre. It was very good, but not as great as I had expected it to be. I was told it was a bit of a "horror" movie, but really, it was mostly just a bit gory in places. The one exception would be the monster with the hand-eyes (I will not go into deeper detail, for those of you who have not seen it) which was beautiful, grisly and also somehow immediately drew my thoughts to the book Coraline by Neil Gaiman, one of my absolutely favourite short novels of all time. My main gripe with the film in general was that I did not feel the two stories interweaved as naturally as I might have liked them to, but that is rather subjective, seeing as how others have praised it to no end for just the opposite. Well worth seeing, and it reminded me that Spanish is a pretty language.

I also read a comic called The Nightly News, which more or less felt like a sort of terrorist propaganda. It made me just slightly uncomfortable, which I think was its exact goal. "The Voice" goes on about the concentration of power, media conglomerates; mostly the usual "easy reading" politics found in many comics for grown-ups (not "adult" comics, that is) and the solution according to the protagonists (or antagonists, as the case may be) is, firstly at least, to kill journalists. I will have to try to find more issues of it to see what it is really about. Either way, I am very unimpressed with the way they handle (real-world) statistics, especially one about the share price of the company producing Ritalin. I will show you later.

The Damage Done

Today brought with it the quintessential The Sisters of Mercy-experience. I finally got my The Damage Done / Watch record! I spent far too much money on it, and my only consolation is that I can probably sell it for around the same price, should I later on understand the mind-boggling stupidity of paying a week's wage on a 7" vinyl that will never be touched by the needle. It must be those collector genes activated, much like love can make almost anything seem like a good idea.


There it is, the first single by The Sisters of Mercy, about as old as me and a fairly crappy recording. However, the lyrics were really very good, compared to those of most other bands in general, and for a first single in particular. What irritates me with a lot of bands is the "angsty fifteen year-old" syndrome and/or just plain bad lyrics. In some cases, it is so bad that I cannot even stand listening, even if the singing and music is good. Never with the Sisters, though, especially from Alice onward.

I also went shopping for cheap book sale stuff and came home with a Lena Ackebo book, a story about Jean Paul Gaultier's career and some odd little book about various political factions in Iran.


Lena Ackebo is one of my favourite female cartoonists and, perhaps not surprisingly, one of my favourite cartoonists in general. For some reason, there are either very few women (notable exception: Chynna Clugston) who manage to release good comics to the general public, or I just have a problem appreciating them. Maybe there is a male hegemony in the comics industry, or society brings up boys to be more interested in comics, hence a smaller population of female cartoonists? Anyway, I have no problem at all enjoying Ackebo's comics, much more for her storytelling and structuring than for the art, admittedly. Actually, the art put me off a bit at first, but I have come to appreciate it with time.


This is a picture from the Jean Paul Gaultier book by Colin McDowell. Some of the stuff in it is totally insane, which is really what I like about Gaultier. There were books about most other fancy designers, but apart from the one about Roberto Cavalli, I found none I really wanted.

Oh, and before I forget. I just read the first 22 out of 24 issues of Girls by the Luna brothers, and I have no idea how I have managed to miss it until now. It is a fantastic comic, if you are not put off by rather graphic violence and nudity. These, however are definitely not what makes the comic interesting. Like any good zombie comic (which it is not, but closely resembles) such as The Walking Dead it is all about what people do together and to each other in a time of crisis. Anyway, I really, really suggest you get it now. It is that good.

Another recommendation while I am at it: The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster. Quite strange and not really exciting as such, but I am almost finished with it, and hitherto, I really like it.

The background at present is a modified version of some William Morris design I found on the web. Morris was a 19th century British artist (chiefly within tapestries and textile) whose designs I really love. Google Image Search is great for finding his art, and it is available in numerous museums. He was a poet and a very early socialist writer, too, but I cannot say that I know much about either of those careers.

Meditative State

Opening my web browser, I was greeted with the customary "how to of the day" RSS feed. The two latest ones are really fabulous; How to Get Your Girlfriend to Play Video Games and How to Make Polymer Clay Cats. I would rather like to find all that polymer clay I have somewhere in the closet (yes really) and make some cats. The last time I fiddled with it was five years ago or so, and I made loads of mushrooms in various shapes and colours.

However, back to the matter at hand - the video games! During the last year, I have actually spent some time playing games, after a hiatus of almost a decade, save for some Xbox and Gamecube now and then. Ever since I realized that I could enter a sort of meditative state while playing Road Rash on my old Sega Megadrive (that is Sega Genesis for you yankees), I have always preferred the games which crave minute control and quick reactions, but can be played with little or no conscious thought. Dawn of War turned out to be such a game, and I played it to such an extent that I actually had to wipe it from disk just because it took to much of my time. Supreme Commander was pretty nice, too, but was marred by just being really ugly. Its retro design did take me back to the days of my youth and games like Sub Battle Simulator, 688 Attack Sub and all the other really nice strategy games which did or did not include subs.

What impressed me the most during the last year, however, was Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Simply because it looked pretty damn good and had such a huge environment to play around with. Shame about the fact that the number of voice actors was so small, and the so called "oblivion gate" missions being almost exactly the same. Still, it was about the only single-player game I have ever felt immersed in in any way. Quite simply/eerily, I did not feel entirely alone playing it.

Right now, however, the only game on my computer is the Polish indie game Soldat, which is like a mix of Counter-Strike and Worms, but more fun. Really, it is hysterically funny, and free/shareware, too. If you for some reason have free time in which you cannot or will not do something worthwhile, you might as well play it. If you prefer non-violence, the (also free) Flash games by Ferry Halim at the Orisinal webpage are fab.

That Proletarian Foot Rocket

For many years, I have been fascinated by spam. Not so much the spammers or their products, but rather their MegaHAL-esque randomly generated mails. Markov chains or whatever. Below are some of the subject line highlights from my inbox:

• That proletarian foot rocket
• stunt woman chain reaction
• muscular weeknight
  
• bicker melodious
• Enter Editing Worm Bitch
• Viral Welcome Guest Sign
• convenience store
• assailant dark grabbed
• outside must mind assessing
• diagnosis uninhabitable
• roots thud
• gizzard sore
  

Some have a certain poetic touch, and some just sound like they are titles of Skinny Puppy songs. To some, both of the above apply.

Sadly, the contents of the mails are seldom as interesting as what the titles hint at.

Update: The magic of the 'net has alerted me to the existence of the Spamusement website.

Escher

Since I was a little kid, I have always loved the art of Maurits Cornelis Escher, especially the repeating patterns and impossible structures. Rather, I found the impossible structures mind-boggling, and the repeating patterns beautiful. Since I have far too much work right now, I decided that it was a splendid time to start trying to make some repeating patterns of my own. The advent of programs like Illustrator has made it shamefully easy, so I am working on one containing an Illuminati pyramid, a ghost and a squatting witch. It looks pretty funny already, but I will probably have to enlist one of my more artistic friends to flesh out the details of the figures, so to speak. More details when/if it ever sees the bleak light of day.

Speaking of bleak light, I just recalled that the homepage I had a decade ago was called "An Electronic Haven in a World Bereft of Colour". Boy, was I a pretentious little turd back then... On to more pictures!


And here is the Mackintosh brooch in all its glory. I know, it is way girly, but I believe I am man enough to carry it around for a while, anyway.


Mmm, my new book about carpets - Tribal & Village Rugs. It contains a plethora of patterns and pictures showing a lot of stuff I have never known or cared for, but it sure became interesting when I started reading about it. I will hardly become a carpet collector, though. They are big, cumbersome, and need maintenance.


This is Palestine back in the day, from the book Palästina I bought today. Some time in the early twenties, I believe.


This is a nice picture from the Mackintosh book, by Margaret Macdonald. Why are there so few people today who paint nice stuff like this? It seems everybody paints nude girls on dragons or glues chairs to walls.

Picture Post I

Today, I will just let my rather crappy camphone speak for itself.


This is what my notes in school have looked like for the past decade. In all honesty, I really am crap at taking notes. They always end up being deranged drawings with no signal to noise ratio whatsoever.


I visited a flea market today, and picked up some great books for about €2/each. Strindberg, Márquez, Slas and Gorkij/Pesjkov, as well as a nice photographic book about Palestine, anno 1925. The latter is full of really nice pictures of the region - city life as well as various scenic views. Whatever one might think about the political situation today, the land was definitely more beautiful then.

I also found a book about Charles Rennie Mackintosh at the annual book sale, and through mysical means I accidentally procured a brooch designed by the same man a few hours later.


Sometimes I just seem to doodle way too much. The big guy is Truth, and his two anorexic kids are Incomprehension and Divestitude. This might be some kind of notes from my studies.


This is an ad campaign by a Swedish labour union, Seko. They seem to have a bit of a problem conveying their message, and this campaign sucks big time. Not because I am against unions in general, but because they demand higher wages for everyone. Sounds more to me like they just demand inflation. However, it would surprise me if that was the case, even though surveys show that people actually become happier if they get a higher wage, even if the inflation eats up the whole increase (as opposed to the wage staying the same, and no inflation).

Is it more equal wages they desire? If so, then just say that, damn it. I also like the middle ad which is a parody of some standard sales campaign and says "Employ 3 - pay for 2", signed "The employers". Seko then writes with really small print at the bottom that "this is our interpretation about what the employers want".

Had I way too much money, I would run the campaign "We are Seko and we will eat your babies! Raaar!"

Glaciers

On my way home from work, the unusually rapid thawing created very nice glacial ice looking things on the rock by the side of the road. Had I the energy, I would have learned how to publish stuff to my blog from my cellphone, but since I am rather lethargic, the presentation of the ice photos will have to wait until such a time I can be bothered to put that wee memory stick into the card reader.

Right now, I am listening to the Pulsedriver cover of that old Kim Wilde song Cambodia, which is pretty nice even though it is a bit too much of a dance floor anthem for my taste. The Apoptygma Berzerk cover is a tad better.

On the whole, I am a bit afraid for my music taste, since it consists of just a select few bands, and I hardly bother to listen to anything new. I am scared that I might be growing old. On the other hand, the bands I do listen to are at least somewhat diverse. From Velvet Underground and The Sisters of Mercy to Robotiko Rejekto, John B, Tony Joe White, Black Sabbath, Instant Remedy, Future Sound of London, Current 93 and Master Blaster. Then there are the bands that I love but that I for some reason never listen to, such as Einstürzende Neubauten and Legendary Pink Dots.

Overall most played on the iPod right now are Mao Tse Tung Experience and Madrugada, though. Regarding the latter, I spent half a day walking through London listening mainly to Madrugada's The Kids are on High Street, which is probably one of the best songs ever. Pity they are on one of the big labels.

Cardboard Box Coffee

Being at work, one of the things I like the most is the industial foodstuff they provide us, free of charge. Today, I found a bucket (!) of almond cookies, which tasted as stale as cookies in buckets can be expected to. I also drank stale cardboard-ish coffee, procured from the machine that one of my co-workers shuns. My life started long after the second world war ended, and surrogate coffee disappeared into the mists of time, but I think this is not far from the taste. And still, I rather prefer it (in small doses) to my go fasta red Nespresso machine at home. It is not like I do not appreciate good food or good coffee, but I really somehow like the cheapo stuff here. Whereas some people are drawn to the aesthetics of fascism, I am drawn to the foodstuffs of communism.

Well, not really.

This weekend will bear with it a damn lot of work for me. In addition to studying for two of my three last exams, I will also be spending time on cutting and producing a movie for the benefit of kids in India. Basically, what I do is make films about various charities in India which will make the moneyfolks in Europe open up their wallets to give these kids a proper education.

I think it is quite a worthwhile way to spend my free time. It can cost as little as something like $10 to teach a kid in the slums of Delhi or Mumbai to read and write. Now, that is what I call value for money!

Speaking of cardboard, try to find the song Cardboard Box City by Levellers (or let the magic of the 'net provide you with a copy), for it is damn good.

Comics

Rigt now, I am watching some kind of horrendous anime called DearS. The English dubbing is awful and so is the original Japanese voicetrack. Add to that stupid sex jokes and that typical absence of actual animation, and it is just like so many other bad anime series out there. I want more Miyazaki, or, lacking that talent and budget, at least more stuff like Lain, Witch Hunter Robin, Wolf's Rain, Haibane Renmei, Last Exile... Talent! Hello?

You may take those implicit recommendations at face value, the above series are really very good, especially Lain.

And now I turned dear DearS off.

Speaking of drawings, I generally prefer them sitting still, except when it is a cheap money-saving trick. That is, I like comics, even though the word is so strange nowadays, what with most comics being full of death and despair. Anyway, in the last few years, I have read through such a shitload of comics that I am a bit ashamed of myself. I could have learned a new language or raised children - maybe even saved the world or something. But no, I have been reading all the Dark Horse and Vertigo stuff, plus a lot of other comics of the same ilk. I cannot say I have not enjoyed it, though, even if some of them were really a waste of time. I mean, stuff like Preacher, Black Hole, Y the Last Man, the Vertigo Pop miniseries are positively brilliant whereas comics such as Spawn are rather tedious in the long run. Maybe, however, the authors did not intend for someone to read 200-ish issues in three days.

Anyway, the recommendations from last week's reading are I Paparazzi, WE3, Tell Me Dark, Tattered Banners and Seaguy. They are good to a rather varying degree, with the last two being discordianismly absurd, the first nightmarishly absurd and the
other two being horrible tales with comparatively happy endings, which I happen to like.

Welcome

It would seem that I have, perhaps against better knowing, started a blog again. My last one was five, six years ago or so, and I recall there being angst and grinding of teeth with getting it to work properly. Now that blogging is in fashion, everything seems to be quite a lot easier, what with the standardized interface, all the "web 2.0" bits and the fancy formatting being just so much easier. Since I mainly want to spew whiny words, I guess this blog will not differ so much from the last one.

Uppland is a region in Sweden, in which the glorious capital - Stockholm - is situated. It is also pretty close to the name of a pretty bad, as I recall it, record (or maybe it was the band itself?) with a rather good-looking sleeve which I listened to a very long time ago. It is a mystery why I decided that Uppland would be a good name for a blog, but it might just have something to do with all nice blog URL:s already having been taken..

This blog, as already mentioned, will be mostly whiny. I will, however, try to serve some cheese with the whine.

For now, I implore you to go visit zombo.com, which is an old favourite of mine, as well as look at some Louis Wain paintings and drawings. I have, perhaps, a bit of a thing for insanity.