cisslog

This pretty much sums up my feelings for "depressed" people (the ones that refuse to even think about doing something to be less depressed).

Translation: "Now you´ve been sitting here indoors in the dark for several days. Don´t you think it´s time to come out for a little walk?"

"No thanks. Of course it is tempting to just turn your back on the angst but you might aswell just harden yourself and get it over with, even if there´s a lot of other stuff that draw!"

"Yes of course. I wish I was as proper as you."

Ok, so this is strange. I lost my voice. I think it happened to me once like 6 or 7 years ago. But I think I still got some voice that time. Now I have none.

I started to explore several things already. First of all, no-one believes you. They think when you say you lost your voice that you are hoarse. So then you have to squeeze just the smallest sound from your throat to make them believe you. Then they laugh. Everyone laughs real hard.

I went outside, passed a convenient store, thought I should go in and get a few things. The lady asked me three things. I didn´t even look at her. At her last statement she was really angry. I don´t blame her. How would she know. I felt like a bastard. I decided I´ll stay indoors until this is over.

I just came back from a boardmeeting. I´m glad I had warned everyone (but they all had forgot at first anyways). I felt pretty much like a faker and an idiot the whole meeting. I managed, but barely.

I wrote everything down with pen and paper all day. My friend Cilla, who looses her voice once a year said those notes are quite interresting to read later. What the heck does one speak about all days anyways. And this is just a fraction of all that…

High culture

Friday night was Moz-night, an experience indeed. We arrived at the arena half an hour before on-stage-time. I haven´t been at an arena-concert since Kraftwerk at Olympen in Lund 1991. So I had forgot all about the enormous crowds, sauntering around singing and drinking beer. We checked out coats, even though we realized what a mess it would be to get them after the concert. The beer was "folk-beer", the Swedish week type. The Danes didn´t seem to mind, or, more likely they had no idea. Because the place was covered by Danes. I guess it was the hard-core-fans attending a second time, since he played in Copenhagen last week. The Danes also had no problems smoking inside. Moz went on stage at 9 pm and the concert was good. I would put it like this: He was cute, he was not ironic (what I could see) and it was just nice to see him in person. The man, the myth, the legend. I also had the pleasure to watch it with an old time friend who also is an old fan of his. My own story is that I hated Moz until about three years ago. I still don´t love him, but, hey, I got to admit, the man is a genious. And his voice is divine. And it still is. Completely awesome. Never the slightest out of tune, his strong, very rare singing-style was still completely intact.

We made it an early night and went home for tea and sandwiches. Next day was busy. Malin went off to relatives, me and S. went to a cultural event, a guy called Stfan Wildhe just wrote this book about the Swedish author August Strindberg, and was going to give a short "lecture" on that together with one of our favourite local performance-artists Per Thörn plus the publisher Bo I Caderfors and one more guy doing short acts/readings. It was in a cellar at a French restaurant in the city center, La Couronne. This used to be a progressive gallery in the 50ies btw. It started at 1 o´clock and turned out to be a really great thing. Not that many people showed up, but we had some wine (red of course) and enjoyed the show. Wildhes reading was so good we decided to buy the book. Bo Caderfors we saw last Wednesday at another show – this time he read a chapter from one of Strindberg´s books. He´s a great reader, so I enjoyed it a lot. Then it was Per Thörns turn. This guy amazes me each time I get to see his acts. We saw him in Gothenburg at the IDEAL-festival too. His stuff is always really simple and genious. For this occasion he picked a chapter from one of Strindbergs books and read it – alphabetically. This means, he had picked out all the words starting with "a" and read those. Each word so many times as it appears in the chapter. Then continued with "b" and so on. He put an egg clock on 20 minutes, that was his time limit. Very strange and intriguing effects appeared. At times, the words almost created a sentence. Then the long "breaks" with the word "att" ("to") pronounced 45 times or so creating a strange sense of sound-art… It all became a mix of reading/monolog/music…. And your mind started to make up new meanings. Also, the kind of words Strindberg used created a strange feeling for the chapter aswell. Even though the words were completely mixed, some "sense" arose.

See Per Thörn next time he visits your town!

This was a great start of a Saturday, and we felt strong and nourished as we went home to prepare the dinner for the evening. Maciej, Malin and P & M showed up for home made sushi. It was a nice, vivid evening with lots of laughs. We had Galliano Hot Shots for desert. This only contribution Sweden made to the international drinks-list. It was just as good as in the early 90ies and we didn´t have to quit after one each. At ten, me, Malin and Maciej were supposed to leave for a night on the town which we did, but not until one hour later. I had an unpleasant experience with Malmö´s taxi-companies as always, we called them twice and booked a cab and both time they just gave a shit about showing up. So finally we walked to the square and got a black taxi. The guy was Turkish and spoke Polish to Maciej. Appearently Poles and Turks are close in business and soul.

The night continued at Buddah Bar (we tried Caramello, a new nightclub at Stortorget but it didn´t feel right) and I must say, that´s a quite OK place for being a nightclub downtown. Nice, narrow building with apartment-like floors, a small dance floor on the second floor and the big one on top. We had strong drinks and danced the whole time. Time flew and they closed at 3, me and Malin went home but Maciej got off at KB and continued for another hour.

The next day we hooked up with Å & O for brunch, and then I and Maciej continued to the the theatre (!) to watch Edward Albee´s (Who´s afraid of Virginia Wolf?) newest play "The Goat". Top actors Susanne Reuter and Michael Nykvist starred. The play was good and strange – it´s about the 50 year old family man suddenly revealing he has an affair with a female goat. Great dialogue and performance by all actors. The audience were 55+ and one gray-haired couple left half way of second act, probably because of the indecent language. What´s the f-ing wrong with people?

Something strange happened today. One of my customers from Sunday´s bazaar (designer´s market) called me, don´t ask how she got my cell phone number, and told me she got the right shirt but the wrong size (she tried it on, showed it to her friend, unfold it and fold it and finally must have picked the wrong one). OK, so we decided to meet up on the square, by the statue, half an hour later. I showed up on time, saw a girl standing there, I walked up to her, she said "Oh, hello!" and then asked if I lived around there, I said, yes, close by, we both started to open up our hand bags and then – she held up a big book (can´t remember which one unfortunately, but I think it was a course-book) at the same time as I held the t-shirt! The moment that followed was one of the strangest I experienced in a long time. She said "Oh my god!" and I just started laughing, saying "Interresting!" and walked off. Five minutes later the right girl showed up…

Have seen a sick concert on Saturday (CON-DOM). A great one Friday (The Knife) and am looking forward to another one on Friday (Morrissey). I find it interresting that these three live acts are/were very different in music and appearance.

There´s a "secret" venue in Malmö that is a very interresting scene for alternative music. I´m happy to be a part of  "the beginning" of this and I honor its creator.