Just a little evening thingy

After at least 10 hours of attempts at photo album making, I think I need a pause. Will have to continue later though, as I had the ingenious idea of systemizing the pictures ON MY BED. 10 points to me...

Anyway, happy news is that it seems I can manage to cram everything down under 30kg, meaning no extra shipment necessary. Have only packed the suitcase so far though, so still have to see whether the rest actually fits into my backpacks as I presume (read: hope and pray for).

Also tried to fix the last things for laanekassen (where I hopefully will get some loans and scholarships, for the non-Norwegians); but find it hard to know whether it all is in order. I have given them my correct account number, registered that I'll be living in a flat on my own and therefore am entitled for scholarships (presuming I pass my exams), made sure my bills will arrive as e-factura... what else can there be? Probably something. Ah well, there's still time.

My book is getting very conspiratory. Very as in VERY conspiratory. There are these orphans, and... nah, you should read it (unless you are Erika or something equivalent, in which case I fear you would laugh at my sad, non-scholarly taste in literature for a painfully long time. I have read Kafka and stuff too, you know. And Jane Austen and those. No really, I have.).

Right, there are these photos still hovering between me and a good night's sleep... will return to them now. And then go to town tomorrow and end my cellphone abonnement before august starts, and send some things I really should send to some people who probably think I've forgotten all about it, and visiting the city hall to say hi and goodbye and fight a little for my right to keep my cute, purple-pinkish identity card as souvenir, and just maybe see if there's something I need from the last day of sale, and go home and clean the upper floor thoroughly, and wait for Majd. Maybe see the rest of that indian movie, kabhi khushi kabhie gham. And more packing, ofcourse. And weighing... Are there scales in the house? Have to check. But first pictures.

Don’t Shoot the Messenger.

The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner - and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis - there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.

That this “kidnapping” was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources - most particularly that of water - by the Israeli Defense (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.

Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly - who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?

Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.

This has to be said loud and clear for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognized for what it is and resisted.

John Berger
Noam Chomsky
Harold Pinter
José Saramago
Tariq Ali
Eduardo Galeano
Naomi Klein
Arundhati Roy
Giuliana Sgrena
Howard Zinn


I do not know whether that claimed kidnapping of two palestinians took place, but in any way; it is absolutely shocking to see the common reactions to this letter, which was distributed to many major newspapers on July 19.

Apparently, criticising Israel in any way makes you an antisemitist, and in Chomsky's case it also makes you no less than a self-hating jew, considering this is his religion. It cannot be stated often enough: Being against human right violations is a final matter, whether they are carried out by jews, nazis, hezbollah or the US. Being against them even when they are carried out by "your own", is straight down admirable.

It goes for the Germans who dared to oppose the Nazis, and it goes for the Jews who oppose current Israeli acts such as kidnapping Palestinian ministers, attacking civilian targets in Gaza and Lebanon (ofcourse, Hezbollah's tactics with hiding in refugee camps and villages deserves no more credit), and even attacking UN headquarters on Lebanese grounds. Yes, Holocaust was a dreadful act that under no circumstance should occur again; but that does not give Jews a special position to act as they will. There is no such thing as a chosen people. That simple.

Tricky, tricky...

One more post, and then I'll call it the day (I do not usually sit all day in front of the computer, especially not in late july, but it so happens that I am trying to upload more than 300 pictures to Mediamarkts website to have them printed, and it TAKES TIME.

Anyway, here's two quiz for you from my psychology days:

1. A woman is in her mother's funeral, where she spots a man she falls completely for. He unfortunately disappears before she has a chance to find out who he is, and noone she speaks with knows anything about him. A while later she kills her own sister. Why?

2. A man discovers that someone has been stealing from him, and that it most have been someone from the household. He immediately rounds up the three servants who were in the house at the time, but they all deny all charges. The man's first thought is to punish them all; but since he is fond of games, he decides to give them a chance to get away. He lets them sit on the ground after eachother, all facing the same way. While they close their eyes, he puts one hat on top of each mans head; one blue, one yellow, and one red. The men cannot see their own hat, only the one/ones in front of them. He then gives them one minute: if the man wearing the red hat can identify that fact before the time runs out, they will all be free. If not, they will all be whipped for the theft. He starts the time, and when it is almost up one of them rightly says he is wearing the red hat, and the men are all set free. Which of the men was wearing the red hat: the one in the front, the one in the middle, or the one in the back? Hint: he waited a while before he said anything.


Best of luck!

How to become sexier, part 7

I will not say I tend to read magazine such as Elle frequently, but it so happened that there was one in the house, and... well anyway. This is Elle's tip on how to become more sexy, point number 7:

Stop in the door frame with your head held high and your shoulders pulled backwards before you walk into a room. Let your gaze move over the crowd, as if you are looking for someone. Stay put a few seconds. Get eye contact with those that are the closest to you, and smile. If they do not smile back, you simply move your gaze so it looks as if you were smiling to someone further back. Keep the smile, and walk straight across the room. Even if you should end in a corner, you will now have given the impression of being a confident person.

... I can think of quite a few other things this person would have given me the impression of being, but then again I do not move in these types of circles...

Uhh... Total kroppsstråling?

(To the non-Norwegian speaking ones: My apologies, but this cause is from a Norwegian website, so no can do. Trust me though, it is pretty shocking.)

Utdrag fra forskning.no:

"Til tross for dette klarte man ikke å forhindre at personer rundt om i verden ble misbrukt i medisinsk forskning i etterkrigstiden. Blant annet kjenner vi saken der den amerikanske regjeringen utførte hemmelige strålingseksperimenter på mennesker fra 1944 til 1974. Plutonium ble sprøytet inn i sykehuspasienter, radioaktive kornprodukter ble gitt til utviklingshemmet ungdom, fanger og soldater fikk sine testikler gjennomstrålt og kreftpasienter ble utsatt for såkalt ”total kroppsstråling”. Forsøkene ble rettferdiggjort ut i fra argumenter om at også disse gruppene burde bidra i forsvaret av landet."

Herre Jesus. Dette visste jeg ikke. Plutonium??

Flicker

One external keyboard richer, and I feel like I just learned how to fly. Man, freedom.

I am back very soon, because I have this urgent need to tell someone about the book I am reading, and I allready sent 6 messages to Lien about it without feeling satisfied. You're up next.

I was at the library the other day, because I promised Majd I'd find him a funny book for his Chiro camp. Funny literature is not what I know the most about if you skip the children's section, so I was wandering around the English section a while looking for something in bright colours or with a childish font on the back or so (my experience is that funny literature often is identified by these things). I had three books in my mind in advance that I thought maybe could pass for funny: the first was Good omens, which turned out to be on loan by some one else; the second was The dice man, which I read last year and remembered as somewhat funny; and the third was My uncle Oswald, which I had a certain suspicion Majd would not see as appropriate camp reading (you never know, ofcourse).

Anyway, as I went there in search of something else to add to the selection, my eye fell on a ragged book with something I identified as a negative film printed on the back. Slightly curious, I pulled it out and put it on top of my allready tall pile of brightly-coloured books, and marched over to a table for further examination.

As I read the descriptions of the potentially funny books, I could not help noticing the words on the filmstrip book: 'Sunset Boulevard meets The name of the rose'. What kind of meeting would that be? Which would be dominant? I simply had to look closer at it. Turning it over, I find it was written by a certain Theodore Roszak. Not a name that rang any bell. Should it have? The title, Flicker, also rendered me clueless. Ah well then, on to reading on the back:

Jonathan Gates loves going to The Classic, a legendary little art cinema wedged between Moishe's Strictly Kosher Deli and Best Buy Discount Yard Goods in West Los Angeles. There he succumbs to what will become a lifelong obsession with the mysterious Max Castle, a nearly forgotten genious of the silent screen and film noir who vanished in the 1940's at the height of his power.
Twenty years later Jonathan seeks the truth behind Castle's disappearance - and finds himself on a journey deep into Hollywood's own heart of darkness, where nothing on the silver screen is ever quite what it appears.
A macabre detective story and an occult tale of medieval heresy, an apocalyptical thriller and a secret history of film, Flicker is a richly evocative study of the dark side of human genious.
Read Flicker and you'll never be able to watch a movie in the same way again.

... By the time I had read it, I had almost forgotten about my actual mission in the library that day. Could this really be as good as it seemed? I was surprised I had not heard about it before, but I was sort of happy as well; for there is something special about finding it on your own. It is the dream when you enter a library or bookshop, isn't it; to find that perfect book just by accident, not reading about it in a review or having it strongly recommended by a friend. I have done it succesfully only once before: at the age of 11, when I fell for the exciting titles of a trilogy written by a certain Bernard Borge, brought it home, read it, loved it, and only later realized that Borge in fact was a pseudonym for André Bjerke, one of my favourite Norwegian writers. At that time, I did not even know he wrote for adults.

Anyway, to return to Flicker: I have read half so far, and I am absolutely charmed. The film history bit is a treasure chest in itself, for he really describes the early film history and it's creators to the full. But the way he writes... He has sentences here and there that really make me stop and pause for at least 30 seconds, due to their sheer beauty or insight. Like the way he describes a movie: A thin broth of illusion smeared across perishing plastic. It is not only an almost painfully beautiful picture; it is also exact to the pinpoint.

What is strange, however, is that he does not at all write the book as a thriller. In the beginning I was wondering whether the person writing the abstract had gotten it all wrong: but then the day gives way to darkness, and I realize that I in fact am shit scared. It is just like those eerie movies of Max Castle he keeps describing... something is making me wonder whether it might not be such a good idea to read any further late at night, but when I look at the words on the pages and the casual way he writes, I cannot possibly see why I shouldn't. The smoke is there, but there is as far as I can see no fire. Strange. Strange, yet highly recommended.

Anyone else read it? Or wants to do so, so that I can hear someone else's opinion? I have seldom felt like discussing a book like I do right now.

The curse of the schermtoetsenbord

I'm off! Will, despite feeling quite silly and pretentious by doing so, keep this mainly in English to simplify things for the Belgium people (not BelgiAN, I don't know many of those; I am referring to those people who made sure I had something vaguely reminiscent of a social life these past few months here in Belgium).

The keyboard has been acting rather oddly as of late, so am actually writing this by dragging the arrow across a little keyboard on the screen ("schermtoetsenbord" in Dutch). In other words, will not carry on for much longer. Have allready developed an intense longing to pick up this laptop, hold it over my head and hurl it into the wall on the other side of the room, all described actions accompanied by a fierce jungle roar. But I'll be back, ladies and gentlemen!