Maya Deren

I watched Maya Deren's short, experimental film Meshes of the Afternoon the other day. It's a brilliant film and the music fits the mood perfectly.

Göstas sista anteckning

Det är tyst i bilen. Jag simulerar sömn. Jag anar att du vill ställa frågor. Vi har trätt ut och in på det redan. Det spelas radio. Jag kommer att tänka på söndagarna med min faster. Jag åkte med henne i bilen och vi lyssnar på radio. Motorn brusar. Det är alltid fel växel i. Vi lyssnar på radiokorsordet. 'Vet du vad det här är', frågar min faster och plirar med ögonen. Det är en ritual. Vi lyssnar andäktigt på en programserie om emigranter och en annan om Georg Malmstén. Vi säger alltid samma saker men det spelar ingen roll. Det finns ett slags ovillkorlig vänlighet där som är viktigare än något annat. Det mörknar. Hon tvärnitar. Däck mot is. 'Oj!' Ett rådjur springer in i skogen. Men det vet jag bara för att min faster säger det.

Jag lyssnar knappt på något annat. Low: Slide. "They tell you come tomorrow / nothing for you now / and listen so intently / and slide / hearing only yourself / you wait for the truth / how can you get it / when all you do / is slide?"

Släktingarna radas upp runt kaffebordet. Det knyter sig i magen när hon börjar berätta. 'Och va hon int hemma från Sibirien .... Ekaterinburg ... eller nånting.' Jag vet inte i vilken anda jag ska lyssna. Berättelserna kommer och kommer. Här vet man allt och har hört allt och genomskådat allt. Det är politiker som vi är släkt med och båtar och värmesystem och recept i tidningen Birka och djur som gör mer skada än nytta och unga män som kör runt, runt, runt. 'Man har ju märkt att....' 'Man visste ju hur det sku gå.' (d.v.s. åt helvete) 'Man hade på känn att...' Ingen säger 'jag'. Jag pratar likadant själv och orkar inte höra min egen röst. Icke-vetandets fina mörker. Glömmer & glömmer & glömmer. Den trumpna förvåningen. Jag håller käften. Tårtan står på bordet och en av de rosadraperade varelserna (Helga/Justina/Amanda) välter ett saftglas. 'Berätta vad du fick av tomten', säger varelsens mamma uppfordrande. Ungen stirrar framför sig med kusliga grodögon. Hon griper tag i en kaka. En till. 'Bara en Justina' manar mor. Ungen tittar bort. Ingen vet vad hon tänker på. En hund gör entré, sen en annan, tjockare.

Det är den vanliga rutinen men bara nästan. Vi träffas på ett annat ställe och reminiscerar om gamla saker, gamla skrönor, gamla oförrätter. Ibland är det tyst. 'Mmm.' 'Jonä.' Jag tycker om dig, skithög.

Mitt huvud går i bitar. Jag ledsagas ner för en hal stig. Funderar på om jag ska kasta upp i snödrivan eller teckna en hälsning på viking lines heltäckande matta. HEJDÅ NISSE TACK FÖR DOM HÄR ÅREN! Jag sätter mig ner på arslet. Försöker titta på havet och hålla mig vid medvetande. Det går inte att tänka på något för tankarna strös runt i hjärnan och det gör ont det med. Det finns en vinkel som huvet kan uthärda. Bredvid mig konverseras det på finska. "Ska vi gå och dansa nu vännen, visst ska vi?" "Låt mig dö!" "Du lovade ju!" Hon går själv och uppenbarar sig några timmar senare. "När man är utomlands ska man inte knussla." Karamellpåsar frasar, tangon malas fram, en spelautomat rasslar, en hord barn skriker och min tinning dallrar olycksbådande. Havet går från grönt och grått och rosa till svart.

Måns Wadensjö - Förlossningen

De betalar en inte bara för att vara vaken. De betalar oss för att arbeta, på det sättet är vi faktiskt lika de andra. Men på vår sida om saken är det inte arbetet som räknas, det är timmarna. Oavsett om man har tid - det kan hända - att räkna dem, eller inte.

Jag uppmärksammas på en märklig liten bok utgiven på Modernista. Den heter Förlossningen och är skriven av Måns Wadensjö. Han har själv jobbat som vårdbiträde på en förlossningsavdelning. I boken avlägger han rapport om arbetsdelning, rutiner, vardagspratet. Boken är svår att genrebestämma. Det är kanske en roman och kanske poesi och kanske en självbiografisk bok eller kanske en sorts handbok. Det som kännetecknar Wadensjös ton är lågmäldheten. Det som gör det till en riktigt fin bok är den uppmärksamhet han ägnar sjukhuslivet, kollegorna och rutinerna (om patienterna sägs det egentligen ganska lite, gott så). Wadensjö låter vardagsarbetet träda fram. Han dramatiserar inte - förutom kanske på de sista sidorna där han frångår det egentliga ämnet och ger sig i kast med förlossningen som fenomen (snarare än arbetsprocess där en mängd aktörer är inblandade).

Wadensjö beskriver nattskiften på avdelningen. Det är ändlösa korridorer, kulvertar och tunnlar, läkare på sparkcyklar, fikapauser, de synliga och osynliga hierarkierna:

Lapparna är alltid undertecknade med egen hand, men alla vet att de i sista hand inte kan komma från henne, trots att man själv sett henne sätta upp dem. Det är sjukhusledningen, VD eller kanske Gud som talar, men inte Chefsbarnmorskan. Det vet man, för på lapparna skriver hon aldrig 'jag' - bara Chefbarnmorska.

Wadensjö har skrivit en bra bok om arbete. Det är roligt att se att en sån här ändå experimentell bok ges ut på ett stort förlag och blir relativt uppmärksammad i medierna.

The "real" Valerie Solanas and what it means for a text to reject followers

It's hypothetical. No, hypothetical is the wrong word. It's just a literary device. There's no organization called SCUM. . . . It's not even me . . . I mean, I thought of it as a state of mind. In other words, women who think a certain way are SCUM. Men who think a certain way are in the men's auxiliary of SCUM.

This is a quote from a Valerie Solanas interview in The Village Voice (1977). Breanne Fahs wrote an excellent article on Solanas in Feminist Studies 34, no. 3 (2008), in which she, among other things discusses the contradictions of Valerie Solanas, the real human being, and the SCUM Manifesto. She discusses the question whether the manifesto is to be taken as a hypothetical text, and whether Solanas' propagation of violence is literary performance or performed reality. Fahs discusses the way Solanas' work has been discredited using the Warhol shooting as proof of the text's being "insane". Fahs argues there are more fruitful approaches than this one. She talks about the inseparability of madness and non-madness.

At best, then, the Warhol shootings were simply an anomalous glitch, a concrete attempt at revenge for mistreatment and neglect of Solanas's most sacred belongings. At worst, the shootings destroyed SCUM'S political potential, as she unknowingly handed over most of her (limited) power to the forces of institutionalization and was from then on simply at their mercy (603).

Fahs also discusses the complexities surrounding authorship, reception and canonization. She ponders on Solanas' uncomfortable relation to the printed library version of her manifest. "A new
preface hy Vivian Gornick serves as a brilliant commentary and introduction to this new edition—and adds to the point of view of today's Women's Liberation militants..." Solanas scribbled on the cover: flea. Valerie Solanas resisted assimilation with the feminist movement, with sexual labels, with social roles - but she also resisted assimilation with the publishing industry. This, of course, adds another level to the question of what is the "true" Valerie Solanas. (One interesting question concerns SCUM itself, is it SCUM as in scum or S.C.U.M. as in society for cutting up men?) One of the copies of SCUM Manifesto I've held in my hand had a razor on its cover, and the other had a picture of Solanas arrested by a policeman. This says a lot about how her work is viewed. Solanas - the spokesperson for gruesome violence. Solanas - the criminal, the killer. The first time I read the text I read it on the Internet, and it was unclear to me to what extent the typos etc. were supposed to be there. Fahs correctly concludes there can be no single answer to what is to count as a "true" version of the text or as a true representation of Valerie Solanas.

There are a bunch of interesting issues that Fahs touches upon. One of them concerns how Solanas' text is to be read so that it is not falsificated. There has been attempts to make the manifesto palatable, a witty contribution to feminist history, something to be read among other texts from different historical situations, a diatribe fully comparable to Weiniger's Dialectic of Sex or Nietzsche's advice about the whip.

Several introductions to Solanas' text emphasize that the SCUM is a movement without following. I think Stridsberg, Swedish writer, says that it is Valerie, not even Valerie, that is the sole follower. But not all of these introductions makes this point to disqualify the text. To say that the SCUM manifesto is not a blueprint for a mass movement is to say something about what the reader is confronted with. As Fah also writes, Solanas' text is outspokenly anti-movement. The movement is epitomized by genteel ladies in a demonstration rally, hippies glorifying Nature, conformism. SCUM is fuck-up rather than the construction of Stalwart Utopia.

"Can an antimovement text actually inform a movement like feminism? How can such texts preserve their authority and power if they are couched in terms that soften their blow?" This is a good question, even though it risks to take for granted some connotations of what it means for feminism to be a "movement" (an agenda, some founding principles, a clearly formulated idea, a program of action).

Solanas demands a more certain absolute and a more distant extreme. She laughs in the face of apologetic, we-don't-really-hate-men, we're-not-leshians, we-shave-ourarmpits, we're-not-offensive feminism. She arouses the central anxieties of the feminist movement, picking fights and inciting us to call out our theoretical and practical differences. Indeed, she provokes us to consider a different kind of absolute, and even if we situate ourselves in opposition to such ideology, it is nevertheless considered (613).

I would argue that this hint of a certain form of absolute is not to be softened into more reasonable or "feasible" political thinking. It is important to acknowledge what this sense of the absolute in Solanas is about. I would say her text reveals an absolute sense of hope, a sense of hope that goes beyond "why future generations?", daddy's girls and Males. The manifesto expresses the hope that the world could be different (as she writes, magic, a world of love).

And that hope can never be formulated into terms that would fit a movement.

Sture goes south

The street parliament is gathered.

Night sky / sea sick / someone quotes Catullus out of the blue / Sture chokes on a chestnut.

Sture does not want to go to the Vatican city. Sture enters the Vatican city. A friendly American priest tells them that the easiest path there goes through a parking lot. The parking space is huge. There are six levels of urban absurdity and one door leads straight to papal gloss. Sture takes a deep breath and walks through the door.

Sture snaps the ultimate tourist photo. To the right: a friend. To the right: a stall sells photos of the pope. Ratzinger grins like Leland Palmer.

Something goes on. People with funny hats. One of them has a beard. Someone who is in the know suggests that the pope has granted these people an audience.

This might be the most beautiful place in the Vatican city.

It's summer winter spring autumn.

Sture contemplates landscapes / landscapes contemplate Sture.

A Hitchcock moment.

A 2001: space odyssey moment.

lowest point

The crisis mixtape blasts Ace of Base; I eat Ballerina cookies while pondering the question: what is the difference between thick and thin ethical concepts, really? Wikipedia knows, I didn't. And then I struggle with a new question. So what did Marx say about the bees and human work? Wikipedia. Marx. Search: bee. Found it. I have another cookie. KISS on the mixtape now. Life is tragic & meaningless and we all know it. Eat a cookie while you can.

on fillmore - endless vacation (2009)

The flu has gone nowhere. I drink tea and prepare myself for a night of frenzy reading & writing & coughing. On Filmore's Extended Vacation is a perfect soundtrack. Hazy vibraphone & xylophone, upright bass / ambience high in the mix (too high according to some reviewers, nicely high according to me - it dodges tacky spa music, or what I imagine to be spa music - and creates creepy nightmare music with birds, rumbles and stuff instead). Associations: silent movie soundtracks / early American analog set / Cal Tjader / ECM stuff / Tom Waits during the eighties / Sjtjekn. Nice. A blend of cheesy references & otherwordliness - gotta love it.

Bok.

Åh, jag vill läsa! Perfekt titel. Och omslaget talar sitt eget språk. Jag ser fram emot fina stunder med Toffe och hans vänner.

slimy madeleine cookies

I am sick. Running nose / spinning head / a slight headache / a cough. This state has a certain proustian impact on me. All of a sudden, I remember lots of things. I remember the Twin Peaks Christmas when I was a kid. We ate home-made fudge and I was sick throughout the festivities. Dale Cooper and The Log lady, Jerry Horne and the man from another planet. We attended the obligatory (it still is) visit at our Aunt's and then we watched four more episodes. Our grandmother was still alive then and she was visiting but at that point she was mostly quiet or she was in a hazy, nervous state. I listened to The Beatles, early Beatles. I remember the cold winter almost ten years ago when I attended religious studies courses. I bought myself a pair of sturdy boots and headed out in the snow. A crowd of drowsy people might or might not have gotten their heads around Hjalmar Sundén's role theory or Nathan Söderblom's distinctions with regard to mystic experiences or the relation between the inner and the external symbolic order. (I have never been able to forget, obviously.) After the eloquent Prof. N.G.H. called it a day I shambled home. I took a nap. I lived next to the hospital. The sound of ambulances and helicopters. There was always some repair work in the building. I got used to the sounds. In the afternoon, I sometimes headed for Humanisticum, where philosophy lived at the time. There were always people to talk to there and some of them were just sort of hanging out amongst those mouldy coffee cups and all the rubble, among the books, in that purple sofa or in those green chairs. So did I. I remember the days in Hong Kong when I was sick and it was hot and I forced myself to do things even though my head felt like it was absconding towards a sphere of its own. We were walking along the harbor, gazing at the movie star strip and the barge boats with colorful containers. Some signs read: "Mind your head". I tried the best I could. I coughed and looked at the skyscrapers with a feeling of unreality in my stomach. We walked up a hill, the market area, the hipster area. The perspectives were tumbling around and my shirt was covered with nice patches of sweat (I fitted perfectly into the picture of groaning colonialist). We argued wordlessly. The same jokes repeated over and over again, both of us sounding like broken records, both of us irritatedly and placidly and amusedly anticipating what the other was to say. I ate an English fudge cake but couldn't feel any taste. I remember having a severe cold, being twelve years old, spending the day in a quiet house, walking from room to room, sinking in to that peculiar stillness that transformed the house into something rather magical. Reading books in bed / cat in lap / checking out the contents of the refrigerator: saarioinen's pizza / watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for the 15th time / half-heartedly executing a parent's order: fetching logs from the shed, cursing the fluffy snow drowning the wheelbarrow into its white depths / watching the afternoon light through the dirty bedroom window, watching patches of sunlight and dust dance on the green wall-to-wall carpet. I remember high school afternoons. Boring lectures. Too sick to focus. Lolling around in the endless corridors. Talking shit with friends, listening to other kids talking about innebandy games and the latest trip to Stockholm and the secret crush on Markus or Andreas or Björn. Guys referred to each other by family name. GrünérMattsonIsakssonPenttinen. Girls never did. They were dressed in white jeans and so was I, but I had no clue so I wore them with a nice orange shirt. Attending another lecture, centripetal force, shmentripetal force. Learning new words in Russian, different species of fish and a thousand aspects of going and coming and returning. A vague feeling of unease and dread, intermingled with comfort and the narcotic conviction that nothing special will happen anyways. After school we walked a few blocks to our favoirite café, the Black Cat. Coffee in giant mugs. Talking shit about teachers, the Dragon (who taught Finnish and was feared and respected by all for her stern ways with konditionalis and illatives, no joking matter, that), new words in latin, the UFO, the latest gossip, the old gossip, the cruel gossip. Listening to other kids talking shit about their teachers. You drove us home and B.B King was always playing in your car. Always. When I got home my grandmother made me dinner and it was sjömansbiff or kotlett or kalops.

Now: essays I should write but I don't / I venture out; after a few steps my heart is beating and my head is pounding / Fritz Lang / Julee Cruise / barrels of coffee / glögg / more movies, crappier movies / For Carnation / yes memory serves for the flies / bad conscience for the essay / Joseph Condrad: Heart of Darkness / the voice of Mr Kurtz / the snot wriggling and swelling inside the head / ailing conscience xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx / Fazer's Christmas chocolate.

Tre roliga.

1) År 1985 utkom en vänbok till PG Gyllenhammar. Den heter Arbete och värdighet.
2) I en bok om arbete beskrivs den nuvarande kapitalismens verklighetsuppfattning som "psykedelisk". Det tycker jag med.
3) Citat ur en artikel om prostitution: "Although this is a gross simplification, for the purpose of this paper, we shall argue that a prostitute sells nonreproductive sex, which we shall call “commercial sex,” whereas a wife sells reproductive sex (i.e., sex plus children). Note that the two activities thus defined are mutually exclusive."
"Humans not only mate but also marry. We argue that men pay a premium for mating opportunities in wedlock. The basic idea is that in addition to biological parenthood, people might be interested in a social affiliation, for example, in a role as recognized parent and custodian."
"A central feature of our argument is that prostitution compromises female marriage market prospects."
"A crucial element in our model will be that married men also consult prostitutes. This begs the question why married men go to prostitutes (rather than buying from their wives, who presumably would be low-cost providers considering that they can sell nonreproductive sex
without compromising their marriage)"
"The child is a public good to both parents if they are married; otherwise, only the mother derives utility from the child."
"We assume that men obtain utility from child quality, k, conditional on marriage, m; commercial sex, s; and a third, exogenously supplied, consumption good, c, which also serves as the numeraire: u = u(k(m), s, c). All goods are assumed normal, with the proviso that commercial
sex is normal conditional on marital status."
"Women do not care for sex, but derive utility from their children (independently of marital status) and consumption. Hence, we write female utility as v = v(k, c). A woman can either work in a regular job or be a prostitute. If she holds a regular job, she marries; if a prostitute, she does not. Hence, the female choice is couched in terms of whether to be a wife or a prostitute."
"Marriages are matched in a competitive market, where women sell and men buy."
Utbud och efterfrågan, serrö. Psykedeliskt är ordet.

Moon (2009)

Moon (2009) contains little of what we expect from the typical Hollywood sci-fi movie. Moon prides itself on leaving out end-of-the-world scenarios and excessive technical mumbo-jumbo. That's certainly a good thing. This is far from a flawless movie, but a nicely executed idea nonetheless. What speaks for it is the focus on psychological tension and the dazzling absence of characters (strictly speaking, there's only one character in the movie but everything hinges on how you define "character") and action. It's a quiet little film that contains one reference to 2001: a space odyssey after another. Hell, Moon has a HAL of its own (with Kevin Spacey's voice). It's hard to say anything about the themes of the film without spoiling the twists of the story. Let's say it revolves around the inner struggles of Sam Bell, operator of a space station on the moon. He's an astronaut on a 3-year shift. The purpose of the base is to mine rocks for energy which is sent to earth. It's a lonely existence that is only aggravated throughout the film...
What bugged me at times about Moon is its slightly conventional aesthetics. It doesn't feel like a very original film. We've seen the same thing in the first part of Sunshine and in other contemporary sci-fi movies too. Don't get me wrong, visually, it's a truly a good-looking film (the details of the base etc.) and some images have a mind-chilling quality. The problem is perhaps that the pictures are a bit shallow - there's nothing really surprising about them. There's the obligatory 5-10 second cuts and the obligatory "eerie stillness" that we've learned to expect from this type of movie. All in all - the film is perhaps too pretty for its own best. That problem is only deepened by the use of sentimental, tv-drama piano music.
On the level of character excavation, the film is a positive experience in that it dodges the worst clichés. That said, I was still a bit disappointed. What I presume to have been an interesting script with some interesting ideas has not really transformed into a movie that digs deep enough, or let's say it isn't very clear into what depths it sets out to dig.
It's a good film, but not a great one.

Fantastiskt.

Hittade det här omslaget på den här sidan. Jag blir så glad.

I LOVE YOU DIANE CLUCK!

This song is so damn nice. I listen to it all the time. It's a shame there's no "real" version on YouTube.

(It's hard not to love somebody who chooses the title "My virtue's gone (hooray, hooray)" for a song!)

mörda män

"Dessutom har hon blivit chefredaktör för ett nytt fanzine, Pervers Kroki. – Det är en tecknad, pornografisk tidskrift för män. Innehåller bilreportage med tillhörande lättklädda kvinnor. Och så mord då.– Mord?– Ja, först tänkte jag visa bilder av mördade män, i stället för kvinnor eftersom kvinnor alltid framställs som offer. Men så kom jag på att det inte skulle funka. Män vill inte se på mördade män."

(jag vill i förbigående nämna seriemagasinet Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist som gjorde stort intryck på min filosofiska och estetiska bildning i tiden.)

"en god gammal berättelse"

En sak driver mig till vansinne. Det är när det börjar tindra i ögonen på ett visst slags kulturmänniska genast då ordet "berättelse" kommer på tal. För de här människorna signalerar "berättelse" något alldeles underbart mänskligt och något alldeles underbart traditionsbärande och något alldeles underbart stort och vackert. Kort sagt: berättelsens kraft ska rädda oss från samhällets förfall, själslig atomisering och rå individualism. Genom berättelserna ska vi föras samman kring brasan och den spontana lusten att berätta och berätta vittnar om en djupt liggande kärna av mänsklighet som inga konsumistiska eller cyniska samhällssystem råder sig på.

Nä. Det förhåller sig helt tvärtom. Det vi ska räddas från är i första hand sentimentala kulturtomtar som talar sig rödkindade om litteraturens och berättelsens storhet, som alltid blir lite andäktiga när Berättelser kommer på tal.

Jag var på ett litteraturseminarium idag i min egen hemtrakt. Där uppträdde ett antal mer eller mindre kända finlandssvenska författare. Kulturtanter och -gubbar bänkade sig förväntansfullt. Temat var kärlek och författarna var rörande överens om att ämnet bäst greppas genom att tala om just berättelser. Tanken som återkom gång på gång var att vi vet vad kärlek är eftersom vi hör berättelser om den. Ibland kom det förnöjda suckar från publiken som bekräftade att berättelser är något synnerligen fint och ädelt. Visserligen berättade de här författarna saker som var fina och intressanta. Men sedan punkterades för det mesta den ärlighet som eventuellt fanns i det dom sa genom att de insisterade på att se det som de just sagt som en Berättelse som på något sätt ska göra oss visa och kloka och kärleksfulla. Det finns goda berättelser, sades det. De goda berättelserna innefattar inte slasherfilmen som sänds på teve klockan fyra på morgonen. De bra berättelserna ska helst ta ställning mot dassig litteratur. De bra berättelserna ska föra oss samman på det där fina sättet (d.v.s. inte det dåliga och billiga). Gubbarna och tanterna i publiken kippade efter andan. Ja-a, visst är det underbart med lite kultur ibland eller hur?

Bilden av den där arkaiska lägerelden (myter med lite orientaliska inslag kanske som en extra krydda) ger mig vaga obehagskänslor. Jag fattar inte alls varför samhället skulle behöva "berättelser". Inte heller förstår jag varför det måste finnas något som "binder oss samman" i den bemärkelse som man verkar tänka sig här. Den bild jag ser för mig här är ärkeförfattaren Björn Ranelid som står i en predikstol nånstans i Ångermanland Småland och myser vältaligt om berättelsens Storhet (speciellt kärlekshistorien) och hur vi blir mänskliga genom berättandet.

Ja och det är ju från början symptomatiskt att oroa sig för samhällets sönderfall och att det är en sammanbindande kraft som borde till. Alisdair Macintyres bok After Virtue representerar tycker jag det här perspektivet. För honom är det ett narrativitetsperspektiv som borgar för mening, både personligt och i samhället. Allt handlar för honom om att skapa ett "sammanhang". Livet är en berättelse och genom detta finns det ett meningsperspektiv. Mina obehagskänslor lämnar mig inte ifred.

Jag kommer också att tänka på litteraturmanifestet som ett antal författare slungade ut i den svenska kulturdebatten för ett tag sedan. Jag förstår i och för sig syftet: det finns en helvetes massa klichéer om konstaplar med magsår och kvinnor som äter choklad och skvallrar med sina väninnor. Men så ska man återta Berättelsen. Den realistiska. Ja, t.o.m. det "renodlade". Form & språk mot Berättelse. En berättelse är tillgänglig och substantiell och inte ytlig och intern.

I kulturdebatt och t.o.m. i en del moralfilosofi framhävs litteraturen som hisnande existentiell och fin och framför allt framhålls vad vi kan lära oss av den. Jag tror det är en dålig tendens. Man kan förstås säga - och det vill jag också säga - att vi blir något specifikt genom det vi läser och genom de sätt som vi berörs av eller låter oss dras med av litterära verk. Det är en viktig dimension av vad det är att tala om att läsa skönlitterära texter. Men den poängen pekar ju mot att litteraturen själv är varken moralisk eller omoralisk. Det finns inget sånt som litteraturens potentiella kraft att skildra det Existentiella. Det finns ingen "berättelsens form" som skulle baxa upp en sån potential. Åtminstone kan jag inte se det. Därmed inte sagt att litterära verk inte kan ställa oss inför oss själva på ett antal olika sätt. Men väldigt lite handlar om att det skulle röra sig om "berättelser". Perspektivet "vad vi kan lära oss genom litteraturen" finner jag en smula moraliserande. Det blir lätt svulstigt och innehållslöst. Att klä litteraturen i högtidsdräkt.

"Men vad är det för fel med en enkel kärlekshistoria då?"
Svar: allt.
(loggar ut för att ägna sig åt a- och omoralisk, fragmentarisk fulkultur.)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

It's 11:37. The office. A rumbling stomach. I want to GO HOME. I am so tired of this shit.

“When people tell us that their families give a wonderful meaning to their lives, we usually refrain from asking them to justify this claim and the attitude expressed thereby …. Asking for justification for such a claim challenges people’s right to find their lives wonderfully meaningful in their own personal ways, even without having any proper justification for their attitudes.”

Yeah, right.

The worst part of this job is that there are several days when I don't have a clue what I am doing or why am doing it. But I guess that's how it is.

Go Sture!

I dagens DN finns en text om en undersökning av textanalysföretaget Saplo som handlar om vad arbetsgivarna söker efter i sina arbetsannonser. Som arbetssökande ska man vara initiativrik och säljinriktad. Och:

Saplos vd Mattias Tyrberg tror att även den som söker arbete måste våga "sälja sig själv".

- Det kan exempelvis handla om att göra en annorlunda typ av CV, kanske en video-CV, föreslår han.

Sture Allén, språkvetare och ledamot i Svenska Akademien, menar att flera av de listade orden för tanken till reseannonsers beskrivningar av "det idealiska resmålet".

- Man får ju ha gott självförtroende om man söker en sådan tjänst, säger professorn med en aning torr ironi i rösten.

Sture är bäst!

The sun (2005)

Aleksandr Sokurov is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting contemporary directors. He made the impressive The Russian Ark (that is a long take!) and he has made the shimmering little film Mother and Son. The Sun (2005) is just as impressive, even though it is a deceivingly simple film without aesthetic pretense. With the exception of one or two surreals breaks, this could be a stage play. The story is equally simple. World war II is drawing to an end. The Japanese Emperor contemplates his future. We see him mostly alone in his chamber: writing poetry, fiddling with biological research, dressing. He meets general MacArthur. They dine. MacArthur offers him a deal. They smoke cigars.

The performance of Issei Ogata, who plays the Emperor, is magnificent. His frailty and his tics are just as important as his lines. This is not a historical drama in the traditional sense. What this is: it's a movie about political bodies stripped down to flesh and bones. The presence of the very few characters are remarkably physical. This is of course something that sets the film apart from almost every film made today (even those who do their best to appear "sensual"). The almost insurmountable tension of every small scene is all the more surprising as the cinematography and color setting are so mundane - no flares, no tricks, no nothing. In this setting, lines that easily turn into predictable clichés actually work (when the Emperor talks about his supposedly divine nature). What makes The Sun such an extraordinary film is that it transcends every conventional concept of what it means to "know" a character. We learn nothing about the Emperor. He is an utterly elusive character - but the film seems to open up for the perspective that it is not very clear what it means to "know" here at all. For this reason, it is slightly misleading to say that the film attempts to present the "human" side of the Emperor. The film explores "viewing somebody as a human being" - that is true - but the disparate images it ends up with are an open-ended affair. No "humanistic message".

The Sun is the third part of a trilogy. I haven't seen the first two films - Moloch and Telets - but I hope I will get a chance to see them soon.

feminism, "the female body", violence.

I listen to a story on Swedish radio ("Radiokorrespondenterna"). A journalist talks about a hospital in eastern (Democratic republic of) Congo. The hospital treats a huge amount of women who have been raped by men; soldiers, ex-soldiers, rebels... Some women's families have been murdered. The journalist talks about how women come there, their lives torn to pieces, and their bodies, too. Some of them have been raped by weapons, one woman shows her leg that was burned with hot knives. When leaving the hospital, many of them are likely to be faced with rejection by their families. Stigmatization.

Over 40 women are raped in Congo - EVERY DAY.
A source from 2007 talks about 12,000 women having been raped during the time span of 6 months.... and: "In 2004–05, the UN and non-governmental organizations estimated that as many as 100,000 women had been raped in the entire eastern DRC." from here.

Some people who are suspicious of "feminism" believe that the only thing feminists fight for is power, that feminists are power-crazed women the only political goal of whom is to humiliate and rob men of power.*

Feminism is about this: all over the world, there are people who are reduced to the potential of being fucked by men, reduced to tools for enhancing male power.

Paradoxically, one aspect of oppression and violence is the image of women as fundamentally frail beings, frail because they have something that can be violated. 'This is part of the CONDITION of the female LIFE.'

Why are women seen as inherently frail beings?
Only in a particular form of world will women and frailty become synonymous; only against a particular background of sexual violence and oppressive practices will this be so.
There is a common view of what a "woman" is.
: A woman is somebody who can be raped. The world is always dangerous for women, be it peace or war - women need always be prepared for violence and abuse because these belong to the set-up of reality. This is just the way it is.
Women & children become the Frail group in need of protection, sometimes military protection.
[I can't articulate this better than this, and I know it is unclear.]

That there is a huge group of Congolese women who get raped is no natural occurance that somehow flows out of their being women in a dangerous world of conflicts and war. Rape & war are sometimes depicted that way. The frailty of women is often implicitly understood to be a "natural expression of war". Noody states it that way perhaps. Violence against women in the context of war is naturalized as a side effect. Women become faceless victims of an anonymous War or Conflict. Rapists are conceived as an anonymous force that can be explained in terms x or y or z (and of course this view of war is just as problematic).

It is important not to naturalize violence - or war, for that matter.
Women's sexuality is used as a weapon in war - but how is this to be understood?

One question is rightly asked by a doctor at the hospital visited by the journalist in the radio program: why is there not a mass movement reacting to violence against women in DRC?


* In the same program, it is noted that Carl Bildt rarely talks about women, sex/gender in his speeches and comments. Carl Bildt's response: he doesn't comment on "these things".

read more here ('I'll be a post feminist in post patriarchy') and here.

Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)

I was first acquainted with the documentary Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) when hearing Hazel Dickens singing a song called "Black lung" which is included in the film and on its soundtrack. Watching the film was quite a weird experience. It evokes a world I am not familiar with. Hard, physical work, political struggle, a society in which conflicts and class struggles are openly acknowledged and brought forward. It's a film about a community for which the word "Union" stands for real political hope. I have very limited knowledge about the union movement in the US so this movie taught me many things. Two more interesting things about the film. The director - Barbara Kopple - is a woman, and a quite large part of the staff are women, too (this is interesting because there are few famous female documentary directors). The other interesting thing is that the film won an Oscar. I don't know how it was regarded then, but at least when watching it now, in 2009, the film is obviously political and it accounts for events with a clear political committment. This is not to say that Kopple made an overstated, simplified movie, like Michael Moore's. Kelpe takes her subject seriously and she take seriously the people she chronicles, too. A telling fact revealed in the film is the huge gap between the company's profits & the very modest increase in workers' salaries. A few other telling scenes include footage of corrupt union leaders promising that they will stay in power for a very long time.

Harlan County follows a miner strike against Eastover Mining Company in 1973. Harlan is a community in Kentucky. The strikers fight for safety; better labor conditions, fair salary and fair treatment of workers. Later on, they fight for the right to strike, too (the company threatens to assert a no-strike clause). Kopple bravely follows the action on the picket line and the debates on union meetings. A large part of the movie is dedicated to female activists who apparently were very important in this strike and very outspoken about the injustice that they witnessed (an Eastover company boss complains that is not the sort of behavior he desires from American women). There are also statements by union bosses and power company bosses. The strike drags on and gradually it gets violent; the tension between striking miners, their wives, mothers and daughters, the police and the "scabs" (company representatives, strikebreakers) endend in several violent encounters. One striker was murdered.

Not only is this movie interesting as a testimony of political events and as a very revealing account of union activism in the US. It is also a very well executed project (a project that apparently changed underway) in which people, ordinary people, are allowed to talk. The first part of the film features lots of music (I must admit sometimes too much), often performed by women. A moving moment includes Florence Reese at a meeting. She approaches the microphone, talks about the hardships, then and in the thirties, of "bloody Harlan". In a hoarse and unsteady voice, she sings "Which side are you on?" It's a thrilling moment of the film. The women portrayed in this movies are respected; their accounts and their solidarity seems to have been appreciated.

Aesthetically, the film also has lots that speaks for it (cinematography, a very nice way of using sound, lack of traditional "narrative"). All in all, it's a film well worth watching - for several reasons.

Natasha (2006)

I am happy that a documentary like Natasha is shown on Finnish telly. Ulrike Gladik talks to a young woman who has left a small former industrial town in Bulgaria for a few weeks of hardships in Graz, Austria. She sits in a wheel-chair, repeating the words "bitte, Herr" and "bitte, Madam". Gladik's documentary is instructive in many ways. She talks to Natasha and her family and her friends. The film doesn't patronize and it is not sentimental either. It deals with hardships and povery in the context of everyday life. By means of interviews, Natasha's situation is explained. The film sheds light on racism and socio-economic changes in post-communist Bulgaria - poverty and unemployment (esp. for Roma people). Natasha talks about what it is like to beg, getting used to it, looking people in the eyes to get any money. Sometimes she gets a few euros and sometimes she doesn't. She talks about humiliation and what it is like to be made fun of, to be looked down on.
Stupid, racist Finnish politicians should watch this documentary and stupid, racist Finnish people should do the same.

The thick of it!

Weird Science har goda nyheter. Jag visste inte att det gjorts en film, In the loop, som grundar sig på den fantastiska brittiska serien The Thick of It. Inte heller visste jag att en ny säsong visas på BBC nu och att det tydligen finns en säsong två också.
Dammit!
Jag har sett en säsong av denna serie och den är fantastisk. The thick of it utspelar sig i ett fiktivt ministerium bland tjänstemän och politiker som befinner sig i ett apokalyptiskt kaos av politiska pseudohändelser och händelseförlopp som ingen begriper sig på men alla är lik förbannat övertygade om att man måste handla och man måste handla snabbt. Någon jävel måste kunna hållas ansvarig för att saker trasslat till sig. Som Malcolm Tucker, premiärministerns "all-seeing eye" beskriver det:
"If some cunt can fuck something up, that cunt will pick the worst possible time to fucking fuck it up cause that cunt's a cunt."
Tempot är högt och dialogerna helt fantastiska.
Som satir fungerar serien utmärkt. Efter att ha sett några episoder av denna briljanta serie ser man begreppet "policy" i ett helt nytt ljus.
Shit, jag måste se resten.

Husisvisdom.

"Man jobbar på dagen och festar på kvällen - och dagarna är längre än kvällarna."

Colleen: Les ondes silencieuses (2007)

Colleen, French multi-instrumentalist Celine Shott is an interesting artist. Her music veers between many different atmospheres but a sense of curious searching is always present in her records. Les ondes silencieuses was released in 2007. It's an austere, wintry collection of songs. The instruments are exciting (glass (!), classical guitar, clarinet, lute-like instruments, maybe cello). This is a contemplative record in the best sense of the word (not "meditation music").

jEsus....fucking....chrIst.

Examples in philosophy

Bernard Williams gives the following example that is meant to show something about 'reasons'. A man treats his wife badly:

I say 'You have a reason to be nicer to her'. He says, 'What reason?' I say, 'Because she is your wife.' He says - and he is a very hard case - 'I don't care. Don't you understand? I really do not care.' I try various things on him, and try to involve him in the business; and I find that he really is a hard case: there is nothing in his motivational set that gives him a reason to be nicer to his wife as things are.

This is from an essay called "Internal Reasons and the Obscurity of Blame."
This is....so weird.

Om ansvar.

Det är ofta i små formuleringar som kvinnor skuldbeläggs för mäns våld. Det gäller att ge akt på det här. Läser gårdagens Husis. Ett kort referat av filmen Thelma & Louise (jag tycker om den filmen, men det är ovidkommande i sammanhanget) av filmkritiker Hans Sundström: "I vår tid ska kvinnor prompt imitera allting. Så också i Thelma & Louise ... Mycket riktigt innebär det en våldsförhärligande imitation av manliga beteendemönster men tillika ett kvinnligt uppbrott från manssamhället. Och helt enligt genren också en frihetens blodiga sång. Det börjar som ett weekendfirande väninnorna Thelma och Louise emellan. Båda har det lite jobbigt med sina män och på vägen till det hägrande målet, en hyrd fiskestuga, kastar de loss på ett Texassjapp där den flirtiga Thelma går lite för långt med en av de lokala machomånsarna." Jag undrar hur redaktör Sundström tänker här. Antagligen inser han inte att han genom beskrivningen "att gå för långt" tar ställning. Det som händer i filmen: Thelma dansar med en gubbe på haket. De går ut på parkeringsplatsen. Han försöker våldta henne. Sundström säger ingenting om mannen. Han talar inte heller om en våldtäkt. Han säger bara att Thelma "gått för långt" och att Louise räddar henne genom att sätta en kula i skallen på mannen. (Han säger också att flickorna har det "lite jobbigt" med sina män.)

Genom att säga att Thelma "går för långt" säger Sundström att hon gjort en invit och att hon bär ansvaret för det skedda. Att säga att Thelma "går för långt" är alltså ett moraliskt omdöme, inte ett neutralt faktum om situationen som man kunde utreda genom en oberoende studie av omständigheter.

"Att gå lite för långt" tycks implicera bilden att Thelma överträtt en gräns - gränsen där det oskyldiga flirtandet övergår i något annat, något man kan hållas ansvarig för. Det här är en vidrig bild från början till slut och tonfallet är nästan lite raljerande. För är det inte bilden av kvinnan som "bjuder ut sig" åt den manliga sexualiteten som tycks finnas med här? Hon "provocerade" fram mannens reaktion? Den aktiva parten är alltså Thelma, den passiva parten (vars handling inte ens behöver nämnas) är mannen som våldtar henne. Jag menar: what?? I filmen, när Louise kommer till parkeringsplatsen och riktar pistolen mot Harlan - mannen som våldtar Thelma - säger han: "we're just having a little fun." Beskrivningen "Thelma gick lite för långt" befinner sig inte så långt borta från det perspektivet. De hade ju bara "lite kul tillsammans" men sedan råkade situationen urarta?

Och vad innebär det att Thelma "räddas"?

Om man har sett filmen ifråga så vet man att den här skuldfrågan är ett tema. Trött och ledsen anklagar Louise, om jag minns rätt, ungefär som Sundström gjorde, Thelma för att ha gått för långt - att Thelma kan skylla sig själv (dels handlade det om att hon ville rikta uppmärksamheter från sin egen handling). Men om jag minns rätt blir det också klart att Louise ganska snabbt inser vad slags ställningstagande hon gjort genom sina ord.

Det är också intressant att Sundström beskriver det som händer i filmen som ett "uppbrott från manssamhället". Som om det som händer i filmen - våldtäkten, mordet, flykten undan polisen - handlar om något slags principiellt avståndstagande från gruppen Män. Det här är en underlig beskrivning (som ganska många skulle läsa som att Sundström förstår filmen T & L som ännu en inlaga i "feministdebatten".)

Visst finns det vissa problematiska element i Thelma & Louise. Men ändå är det en film som är viktig just i sin beskrivning av manligt våld och också i beskrivningen av skuldbeläggande av offret.

**

I lördagens Husis ingår en ledare av Marit af Björkesten med rubriken "Ingen ursäkt för våldtäkt". Där uppmärksammas att antalet våldtäkter i Finland 2008 ökade med en femtedel i relation till året innan. En konstapel uttalar sig om att antalet våldtäkter kunde ha halverats om offret hade betett sig på "ett allmänt godtagbart sätt". Sedan följer en förvirrad formulering av af Björkesten själv: "Visst är det ansvarslöst av en kvinna att ragla omkring redlös. Men det är oförsvarligt att föra över ens en del av ansvaret på offret." I och för sig kan man ana sig till hur af Björkesten tänker här: ansvarslöshet för berusning är en allmän ansvarslöshet som inte har med ansvarsfrågan gällande våldtäkt att göra. Vem som helst, kanske man tänker, är ansvarslös då den raglar omkring. Men frågan är om det är så enkelt. För trots allt kopplas ju graden av berusning och våldtäkt ihop. Som om graden av berusning hos någondera parten skulle göra en skillnad i beskrivningen. Jag har svårt att förstå mig på den här idén, "när man är full kan lite vad som helst hända". Oberoende av hur jävla packad offret än är kvarstår beskrivningen: VÅLDTÄKT. Berusning ändrar inte ett jävla dugg vad det handlar om.

A Hank Williams Journal!

Among the new posts I read the announcement that there will be a film about Hank Williams!
I hope it won't get the Johnny Cash treatment, though. I wasn't really impressed by "Walk the line" except for the good music, of course.

ps: am listening to Ramblin' man & god, that's a good song. almost all of them are (or well, some are goofy & silly, but plenty of fun all the same).

---------------------------

"Nä, nu får det allt vara färdigjobbat för ikväll. Det är väl bara att gå och knyta sig. Det är ju en dag imorgon också."

playlist

A god damn spotify playlist. For insomnia etc. It is very long. You can add stuff if you want to. It's collaborative so it should work.

kristendomsstrategi?

I dagens DN skriver KG Hammar ett klokt inlägg med anledning av det svenska kyrkomötets godkännande av vigsel av samkönade par. De flesta kommentarerna är griniga. En av dem är riktigt rolig: Bibeln är kyrkans "strategiska plan". Vad är Gud? VD? Är kyrkan aktieägarna? Är det månne bra avkastning på kristendomsaktien? Vem sköter auditeringen för den här verksamheten?

Il dono (2003)

The state-funded TV channel Yle Teema broadcasts an excellent assortment of foreign, non-Hollywood movies, old & new, rare & famous. I missed the first part of Il dono (because my digital box is fucking up again) directed by Michelangelo Frammartino. It's a shame I didn't see the whole film. There was no dialogue in a traditional sense. The very few words uttered by characters were not translated. Instead, the film comprises long takings of landscape and people doing things. The setting is a rural village. The scenes of the film revolves around an old man, a strange girl and a very old woman. The cinematic language of Il dono is very different from the face-centered, dialogue-driven scheme of commercial movies. The film appeals to the viewer's attention and imagination. There is no story that tells you where to look. The images are in a sense open. Rubble, a car, a person riding a bicycle, hills, the village, houses, a dog. A sudden burst of funereal music. In some scenes, I was confused about what people were doing and I was trying to re-orient my attention.
In one scene, a boy kicks a ball down some stone steps. During the next few minutes, the camera follows the ball's journey down the steps and down the stone path between a few houses. A donkey looks at the ball, surprised. A man passes by. This is a brilliant scene.
In another scene, an old man leaves a mobile phone on a table. It's not his phone. The phone rings. The vibrating phone is reverberating against a table. Close-up of ringing phone, the table cloth.
One scene bothered me. A girl stands by a window, looking out. A man is in the room. Suddenly, the woman unbottons her blouse. The camera focuses on her half-naked body. What separates this scene from the rest is its allegiance to conventional, porno-ish aesthetization of the female body. The girl (a prostitute?) becomes statue-like Body, while the older man shuffles around the room. The woman's body is lit by the light from the window, while the male lurks somewhere in the darkness of the room. The girl is portrayed as inhabiting a world of her own (in other scenes, we see her in an almost catatonic state). What I intend to say is: men are very rarely undressed in this way in movies, and their bodies are rarely aesthetized into frail nakedness. When males are shown naked, the context is usually different.

a mess.

I presented a paper at our small seminar. One comment made me think about stuff. The comment concerned a biographic description of Simone Weil's years in the Renault car factory. I wrote: "the work exhausted her." I was told that this is a slight understatement. It is. A big one. The work did not "exhaust her". She was almost killed by the machines. Weil was clumsy. She worked anyway. The machines were dangerous. But in the hustle & bustle of philosophical writing, I did not really pay any attention to my description. I just wrote something that would somehow "bring out the point".

My small mistake reveals a tendency in my thinking that I am worried about.

What felt so bad about this realization is how immensly dulled my mind can be with respect to giving a true description of something. "Well, something along those lines will do...." "I just have to muddle through."
I don't blame "philosophy". It's just a failure of attention that might seem insignificent but it is not. It's not just "getting the facts wrong". It's more an inability to care about details.
Exhaustion can be many things. Excercise can be exhausting but that does not necessarily mean it is harmful. A conversation sometimes exhausts me but that need not be harmful, either. (I know there are more "clinical" uses of the word, though.)
Weil writes somewhere (I think) that factory work work killed something of her youth.
Exhaustion doesn't kill youth and it doesn't kill the soul either.
It's these kinds of things that make my texts a mess and make me despair over writing.
Weil herself acknowledges the difficulty of depicting the hardship & misery of (factory) work in a truthful manner that defies banality.
My "slight understatement" is an example of that problem.
(But realizing that my description was irresponsible and thoughtless only shows why I think philosophy is not always a stupid academic excercise: sometimes you realize that you can't just say whatever you like, "if it brings home the point". "Muddling through" is not good enough.)

Hjärnan i trim, hjärnan i arbete

Eftersom jag är extremt sysslolös på jobbet läser jag en bunt HBL. Det är som vanligt en artikel om arbete som gör mig grön i ansiktet. Under rubriken "Ge hjärnet! Kolla e-posten! Ring Ulla-Maj!" analyseras en riksdagsledamotsassistents vardag av en neurolog. Det är det vanliga. Hur hektiskt är arbetslivet idag? Hur ska man trappa ner på takten? Nu är det alltså neurologen som ska komma med små råd och rön om den effektivt fungerande hjärnan. Resultatet är inte överraskande. Neurologen talar om vikten av vila och pauser. Vad som är slående är dock hur sneaky en retorik om "det moderna arbetslivets hektiska takt" lätt blir. Å ena sidan verkar det fint och bra att neurologen är bekymrad över en hög arbetstakt. Men utgångspunkten verkar vara tanken att vi behöver en effektivt fungerande hjärna - för att kunna jobba med maximal förmåga. Det är alltså saker som minne och koncentrationsförmåga som betonas. Att journalisten alls väljer att vinkla artikeln på det här sättet är symptomatiskt. Den hårda tillvaron som snuttjobbare och multitaskare sägs å ena sidan vara problematisk. Men varför? Tydligen eftersom den här formen av tillvaro riskerar att verka i motsatt riktning än den önskade; att arbetsförmågan blir sämre och inte bättre. Utifrån den här synbart "humana" retoriken kommer sånt som sömn och kaffedrickande att underställas ideal om effektivitet. Hur mycket sömn behöver människan för att fungera optimalt? Och om kaffedrickande:

"Det är dags för den dagliga kaffepausen. Den tar hon samtidigt som andra assistenter på SFP:s kansli. Hjärnforskaren föreslår en paus efter två till fyra timmars tankearbete.
- Jag rekommenderar varmt kaffepauser med kolleger! Du trimmar ditt tänkande med att tala med en annan människa, säger Kiti Müller.
Müller har tidigare i offentligheten vädjat om ro för tankar på arbetsplatsen. Hon anser att var och en ska få sätta 10-15 procent av sin arbetstid på att diskutera och tänka."

Man tycker kanske att jag läser texten lite ogint. Hon förordar ju reflektion osv. Men det paradoxala är alltså att detta verkar göras utifrån en idé om vad det är att fungera bra. Och nu gäller det alltså hjärnan. Men en funktion är alltid en funktion för något. Det är svårt att förstå betoningen av minne och koncentrationsförmåga om det inte görs för att det är viktigt att minnas och att koncentrera sig. Vad en del formuleringar i den här artikeln - såsom citatet ovan - ger vid handen är att minne och koncentrationsförmåga är viktiga just för att kunna arbeta optimalt. I det här sammanhanget är det därför inte alls märkligt att också den arbetsdel som idealt sett skulle innehålla diskussion och reflektion kan ges en kvantitativ beskrivning.

Jag vet inte om jag förhåller mig alltför skeptiskt till den retorik som betonar vikten av "avslappning". Men ofta tycks det mig att bakom fasaden av kritik av nyttotänkande finns det ett ännu större och mera omfattande - subtilt också - framhärdande av nyttoidealet. Jag har t.ex. svårt att förstå begreppet "avslappning" isolerat från en smygtanke om att vi slappnar av för att kunna göra något annat. Vad detta "annat" är sägs ibland ut och ibland inte.

Om det är så att jag ska dricka mitt kaffe och prata med andra människor för att hålla min hjärna i trim flyttar jag hellre ut i öknen och vallar kameler, eller nå't. Eller vägrar arbeta helt och hållet.

Men of Honor

So I watched another Melville noir movie. Le deuxième souffle (1966). I've watched two other film of his, one from 1959 and one from the seventies.
This thing was almost 3 hours long and the most profound thing the film taught me is that you get a very sore ass out of watching boring, pretentious criminals talk about their petty business for that long. And the film, I suppose, was supposed to be funny (at least one guy's guffaws were particularly audible, thank you).
Some scenes were technically entertaining. A few scenes worked really well in creating a real sense of tension. What it did have was also a nice soundtrack, I must say.

Now: a small rant.
I am so sick and tired of movies/books about existential gangsters. That also goes for existential films about gangsters, like this film was, I suppose, intended to be. I don't, ever, ever, FUCKING EVER, want to see yet another movie or read another book about a gangster with "standards", with a sense of "honor", which imbues him with dignity despite how corrupt these "standards" are. In this movie: "don't rat, don't betray".

And don't show me another ending in which honorable-yet-ruthless gangsta meets his maker in tragic, futile Death which is supposed to epitomize the Human Condition. When rid of all that honor, the film shows the hero reduced to a pitiful lump of a creature.
That little existentialist, faux-fatalist lesson is truly sympathetic, ain't it? Life is absurd, isn't it?
It sure must and will be, if you're a MAN OF HONOR.
Here, there is a constant shift between two perspectives: either you are a hero of a majestic tragedy OR you are a crushed ant. Both show life and human beings to be quite despicable affairs.

I must confess I prefer completely brainless heist movies to this movie's shallow aestethization. (But don't even get me started about how much I loathe "the gentleman robber" - I don't care about your FUCKING DIAMONDS, awwright?)

A humble plea to Elokuva-arkisto: Don't waste my time with more masculinist bullshit PLEASE.

(It's not that you can't make interesting art out of this subject - I once saw an excellent documentary about a Yakuza organization. The documentary drew parallels between yakuza codes and business-talk.)

Of course, Mr whatever is praised as a "dedicated auteur".

I'll try to write a more substantial post about this when less tired and less pissed off.

Chavela Vargas

Chavela Vargas is a popular Mexican singer. If you haven't yet heard hear music, it's time for you to do so now. Even though I don't know Spanish, and so don't understand the lyrics, her simple, guitar-driven songs hold me in thrall. Her voice; hoarse, nuanced, expressive, is unique. She goes from love-lorn sultry to violent growls in a second. Her phrasing is exquisitely forceful and though I have no idea what she is singing about, I have no trouble grasping the emotions of the songs.

The stories and rumors about Chavela Vargas have a hemingway-esque tinge. She is said to have had a relationship with Frida Kahlo. She hanged out with contemporary luminaries. She subversed traditional femininity. She carried a gun. She engaged in hard boozing. She jumped out of a window because of love trouble, gaining a limp. According to AfterEllen: "Now 84 years old, Vargas makes her home in Veracruz, Mexico and still retains a love for guns, keeping a Magnum in her house that she uses to warn away animals."

But all that doesn't matter. The music she made is fantastic. She sang a style of Mexican songs called ranchera that were/are usually performed by men (for women). She sang for women. The production of the songs on the records I've heard does not gloss over their toughness with smooth additional instruments, nor smooth arrangements. (I shudder when thinking about how some of Vysotsky's music is made quite unbearable due to cheesy production.) Vargas' music is raw power. Listen to the song "Macorina" and you'll probably be convinced she's a great, great musician. Her music has appeared in many films, but I would say that the brilliance of her music tends to surpass the quality of the films it appears in. She has also acted in a couple of movies, among them one Herzog film (which I haven't seen), Scream of stone.

Milton Cross and Boxhead Ensemble

It's been a slow week. I'm sick and spend the day at home with Simone Weil's Need for roots. The colors outside are exploding. I feel drowsy. I take naps and have weird dreams. I make English breakfast at 1 pm and spend the rest of the day grazing in my sunlit room.
The opening track of the album Light in the west by Milton Cross hits my mind like a fresh breeze. The aptly titled "It's been almost a year" is 11 minutes of gauzy introspection, 11 minutes of floating sounds plodding onwards for what seems to be a blissful eternity. A beautiful melody played on violin is initiated, the pace is fastened and the melody starts to fall apart, being replaced by a thick layer of harmonium drones. That song evokes lots of things in me. Places, memories, emotions. The rest of the album is very good, too. More experimental, perhaps, more clattering little sounds, than the cohesive world created by the first track, but the songs are always interesting. Admirers of Boxhead ensemble or Brokeback might like this album, too.
After listening to Milton Cross, I felt an irresistible urge to put on a Boxhead Ensemble album. Two brothers, from 2001. It's a much more narcotic affair than Milton Cross' rustic record. I am not immediately convinced by the compositions. It is, I think, a far more difficult album than some other releases by that same band (like Dutch Harbor, Niagara falls or Quartets). But it grows and it certainly will continue to grow as I listen to it more. Somehow, this album has some atmospheric similarities to Nick Cave's and Warren Ellis' soundtrack to The Assassination of Jesse James. I'm not sure why. Among the instruments featuring on the record, we find guitar, violin, percussion and cello. All of which are played by prominent indie/post-rock musicians more famous for their other projects. The pace of Two Brothers is mostly slow, but there are recurring noiser elements that prevent the record from becoming too serene. Several members from Dirty three parttake in the Boxhead Ensemble project this time around, and listening to the result, this is really obvious. In a good way. I really like some Dirty Three albums, even though their catalogue is a quite mixed bag.
Great stuff, indeed.

The profound meaning of Art.

There was a time when life was simple and beautiful. Virtues flourished. People looked after one another. Art was appreciated. Films represented a certain kind of moral lucidity. But you know. The future may not be so bad. Great love stories are yet to be told.

Religulous (2008)

I just watched an extremely annoying movie called Religulous. Yeah, I know, the title might already give a hint of what kind of movie this is. A stand-up comedian & TV personality, Bill Maher, travels around the world, trying to demonstrate for the viewers that all religious people are belligerant, fundamentalist morons. All the usual ingredients of the contemporary atheist "movement" (or whatever) are present in the film. Maher presents himself as the humble sceptic who "simply asks questions"/"asks simple questions". Two or three minutes into the film, it is painfully obvious that what he actually does has nothing to do with humble inquiry.

Maher seems to know exactly what those people with whom he conducts interviews are going to say. He has intentionally chosen to speak with what is depicted as seriously looney religious people. He talks to a Christian man who converts "gay people" into hererodom. The only question he presses the man with is: "but don't you realize that gay people are BORN that way?" The man says no and that's that. In another scene, Maher visits a Christan-themed amusement park. He interviews a guy who acts as Jesus. Maher asks him some question about the devil and the guy serves him a long, confused reply.

The questions he throws into their faces are always the same. "Do you really believe Mary was a virgin? How can you believe that Jonah could survive in a fish for three days?" And, sure, the guy's mission is achieved. The film is packed with religious (ahem) people who say nutty things. His point about religion is that religious people hold faulty beliefs and that the sceptic's primary task is to question these beliefs. In that sense, he defends old n' ragged rationalism.

If somebody says anything close to smart, they are not allowed to talk. One man is ridiculed for saying that the Bible "did not mean to say" that gay people are bad. Another person tries to explain to Maher that the Bible should not be read as a scientific document. A seeminly sympathetic catholic priest laughs at some of the dogmas of Catholicism. That makes no impression on him whatsoever. Nobody really gets to explain anything in the documentary. The interviews shown in the film comprise a few words, brutally interrupted by loud music and funny archieve pictures or animations (Michael Moore has had an influence here, for sure).

Sure, there's a shitload of religious stupidity in this movie and in the world. But what was intended to be "political comedy" elicited a quite different feeling in me. I felt weary. This guy Maher explicitly challenges the viewer to reject religion - the other alternative being insanity. His entire approach is extremely self-righteous and banal. He is not interested in talking to people. He is interested in collecting material that shows that HE is this fantastic, funny guy who refuses to believe in silly fairytales. His dissection of religion does not appear to be a dissection at all, because he lacks honesty, he lacks self-awareness, and he lacks capacity for serious conversation or even serious reflection. You might retort that Maher did not intend to accomplish a philosophical tract on religion. But what I would say is that even at the level of humor this was rarely a good film - for just the reasons I've mentioned.

Maher is almost never present in the film in a personal way. The most interesting scenes revolve around his family. But these are short moments. In another interesting scene there is an encounter with a jewish rabbi and Maher. The rabbi supports Palestine and does not accept the state of Israel as legitimate. Maher is extremely annoyed with him and interrupts him all the time. The rabbi talks and talks, "please, let me finish!!!". Maher is fed up with the situation and walks out. This is almost the only moment when he shows any personal reaction that is not rhetorical, "I deliver the message of scientific Truth".

I discussed the film with a few people afterwards. A common reaction was that Maher's approach was maybe a bit simplistic and that he was wrong to attack religion as such. But, after all, we know that religion is different in the US and that there is a huge group of fundamentalists who need to see this movie. I'm not sure if this makes sense. When a person claims that somebody "else" would benefit from seeing the movie, there is always a hint of patronizing contempt in that statement. "The fundamentalists are stupid people, they need a simple message". I think this is really wrong-headed. And this is the problem with Maher's movie. He does not address religious people, it seems to me - because to him it is completely unclear what it means to address anybody. Maher's film nurses the confidence of a certain group. WE are the self-conscious, scientific people who know better than believing in virgin birth. A second problem is that "we" have a lot of conceptions about who fundamentalist people are. They live in the US and they are crazy and they need to be educated by films such as Maher's. But who are we to talk for these people that we have very little knowledge about? Who are we to say anything about "what is effective"? And what does this perspective of "efficient movies" bring with it anyway? (what idea of persuasion does it presuppose)

According to Wikipedia, the reception of Religious leaned towards the positive. One critic wrote: "I report faithfully that I laughed frequently. You may very well hate it, but at least you've been informed. Perhaps you could enjoy the material about other religions, and tune out when yours is being discussed. That's only human nature." That's idiocy.

Maher's movie will certainly not enrich the present intellectual state of criticism of religion. I would instead say that he, unknowingly, impoverishes it with lazy laughs about stupidity and hysterical apocalyptic images. What is rarely acknowledged is that critical capacities require more than some sort of intellectual steadfastness. Sure, some people will be provoked by Maher's movie: the images of people praying like crazy, his ridiculing questions, the choices of topics. And, sure, of course there are these cultural phenomena. It just that Maher's preoccupation with them does not go deeper than the surface.

(Among contemporary films dealing with crazy religion, I felt that Jesus camp was a far more interesting way of presenting issues. What that film had, in distinction from this one, was focus. Jesus camp did not stop at ridiculing a few religious statements. It dealt with a way of life.)

usch.

Av någon anledning (= flera) får en sån här formulering mig att se lite rött:

"Plötsligt är alltså kyrkan platsen dit den trendkänsliga poppubliken styr sina steg. Att ackorden börjar färgas med andlighet kan möjligtvis förklaras med att klimatångest och lågkonjunktur lockar fram de grundläggande livsfrågorna hos människor."

Alltså faan, lägg ner nu för fan, kvasisociologer.

Mail

I got mail today.
"Dear Mr ----" [my name] "The international Socrates Award for Philosophical achievement - Iconic Achievers"
The letter praises "my" (the recepient's) philosophical achievements, recognition of "your varied talents recognized by all", "your avocation, enthusiasm and reputation".
But oh, the only downside of this brilliant Honor is that you have to BUY this fine testament to achievement. For $ 635.
"Commissioned by the IBC, this wonderful, laminated, full-colour certificate has been created by an excellent professional artist. Measuring an imposing 11.5" x 16.5" the award features the portrait of the legendary Socrates in the background.... It will become an heirdom for you and your proud family to cherish"
Maybe I would gain some confidence were I to buy this magnificent thing.
Philosophy is so hard anyway. Maybe one had better buy oneself some recognition in this business.
Now, I have a serious and existential question: WHO THE HELL PAYS FOR MAKING THIS SHIT UP? I mean, printing, distribution etc. must've implied some costs. That there are actually real people who produce spam like this amazes me. Maybe that is what I'll do when I grow up. Profession: producer of spam.

Dagens Matti

Måndagens Husis. Matti V. har enligt en notis uttalat sig i ett radioprogram. Han vill inte bli politiskt lik som får lida för alla partiers synder och det som måste räknas som systemfel. Enligt notisen:
"Vanhanen ville inte heller gå in på om en statsminister kan ljuga och sedan sitta kvar.
- Det är en hypotetisk fråga."

Elfriede Jelinek - De utestängda (1980)

Efter att ha läst Thomas Bernhards Utplåningen var det genast dags att ägna sig åt en annan arg österrikare. Elfriede Jelinek. De Utestängda utkom på tyska 1980. Precis som jag väntade mig var det en arg bok. Boken börja med en skildring av ett gäng ungdomar som överfaller en man. Resten av romanen skildrar tiden före överfallet. Rainer och Anna är syskon. Deras far var en SS-man och nu är han en pornografiälskande hustrumisshandlare. Rainer svärmar för den mystiska sportflickan Sophie. Han får hård konkurrens av arbetaren Hans. Boken är skriven på en brutal, upphuggen prosa. Språket rullar fram som en bulldozer. Jelinek fångar slitna uttryck, självblindhet, warpad glättighet och ytliga djupsinnigheter. Jelinek skriver inte tomma provokationer.

"Herr Witkowski har återvänt från kriget enbent men rak i ryggen, i kriget var han mer än i dag, nämligen oskadd, tvåbent och i SS. Med samma eftertryck som då vid yrkesvalet sitter han idag vid sin hobby som inte vet av några inskränkningar: det konstnärliga fotografiet. Hans motståndare från fordom hade dunstat bort genom skorstenarna och krematorierna i Auschwitz och Treblinka eller täckte slavisk jord. De småttiga gränser som i dag har tilldelats Tyskland överskrider Rainers far varje dag på nytt när han fotograferar konstnärligt. Sådana gränser erkänner endast kälkborgaren i sitt privatliv, i fråga om fotografiet utgörs de av kläderna, och Witkowski senior spränger dessa moralens och klädernas trånga skrankor. Modern inser genast varifrån sonen har ärvt sin längtan att bli konstnär: från sin far. Fadern hade sinne för det konstnärliga i sin hobby. Av med kläderna, Margarethe, nu ska vi ta ett par aktfoton."

Den text som Jelinek manglar fram driver med myten om ungdomen som en oskuldsfull och romantisk tid. De ungdomar som skildras har angst så det räcker, men Jelinek driver förstås också med detta - den livströtta, nonchalanta Alienationen. Som vanligt när det gäller Jelinek är beskrivningarna av ungdomarnas neuroser och självupptagenhet samtidigt en diagnos av ett samhällsklimat. Jelinek skriver roligt och skarpsynt om uppfuckade diskurser kring kön, sex och klass. De Utestängda är en desillusionerad bok, men poängen är inte, såvitt jag kan förstå, att "få läsaren att känna sig dålig".

(Jelineks angreppssätt har en del gemensamt med en annan bok som jag har på gång. Ett evighetsprojekt. Det är Robert Musils tegelsten Mannen utan egenskaper. Han är ännu en sur österrikare och också han bokför tomt surrande skitretorik.
Österrike är ett konstigt land. Mycket konstigt.)