i fought a pinball machine and the machine won

Last week was nothing but rock and or roll.
according to the tradition me and Herr Joh went to both Motorpsycho gigs at Rockefeller, and Ms I joined us for the first.
it was nice and after some thinking we came to that it must have been the 18th or 19 th time we saw them.
the concerts were good, but were they that good? well i guess they were, but after they had to find a new drummer they´re not that tight anymore,
and i miss some of the dynamics that used to be their trademark at least live. at least i missed that in the first gig, but the second one
had more of this, and after opening with an 25min. version of Un Chien déspace it´s both hard and pointless to complain.



Then there was a pinball machine that had to be moved from A to B, only that A was in the first floor, and B, our apartment at the 3.floor.
my neighbour Herr Ted had bought this from a friend and figured that it was a nice thing to have in our living room, (by the table tennis gear...).
oh your god that pinball machine was heavy... but after two staircases it was finally at our door ready to get in be plugged to the wall and enjoyed, but what is this...it´t too big, i doesn´t fit in our door!
we actually had to brake of the top to get it through the door and in to the apartment, and now it´s a sad sight in the hall way....



then i suddenly had a lot of money on my account, and i went shopping for the things that i like the most; books and music.
bought the fist "Sandman" book, i´ve read it but never owned it, then moreNeil Gaiman ; "American Gods". My favorite and only manga series Yukito Kishiro´s "Battle Angel Alita" what a fantastic graphic novel, lots of action. and a Recording of Robert Schumann´s op.2, op.4, and op.6 with the French pianist Eric Le Sage. It´s always fun to hear pieces one have played, at least tried to, played by others.



so after Motorpsycho x2, pinball battle, and shopping i woke up feeling ill on Sunday, but this house is the best place, well second best place to be sick in (nothing beats home with mom buying soda and comic books for her sick son).
The people i live with Herr H.E, Herr BES Ms A and Herr Ted together posses all the DVDs in the world, so i´ve spent the days watching Shameless and Pat and Mat. Crazy just crazy. Shameless is a British drama about a family of six kids and a runaway mom and a nice but useless alcoholic bastard of a dad.
i used to watch Mat and Pat as a kid, they were known as "To gode Naboer" (two good neighbours). these two Czech puppets are always trying to build or fix things with no regards for anything and this always goes wrong, i haven´t laughed like that in years.

no i´m home from work, hoping to be OK till me and Ms A is going to Helsinki,

yours,

Herr W

10 "But if we are far apart it´s just space not mind"

it was 1998 and i some how got the idea that things were happening in Norwegian underground music,
i later learned that it had been going on for quite some time, as a mater of fact ever since people began making pop music in my country.
so i called Oslo rock antikvariat and asked the guy at the phone to send me some great new Norwegian music and he did,
together with Cato Salsa Experience debut 10", and Gluecifers "Soaring with eagles at night to rise with pigs in the morning", Dipsomaniacs second long player Reverb no hollowness, feathered in the parcel from Oslo.
and i have loved it ever since, it´s a psychedelic pop LP with beautiful tunes, great lyrics and a warmth one rarely find in through a whole record,

the debut and the later LP are great too but this stands for me as their best, and one of the dearest LPs i own.

Ten Sundays are left of this year,

yours,

HW

I hate to be the one to tell you this...

...but, there is only ten Sundays left of 2006,
some might say that its best that way due to the fact that Sunday is one of the most charged in our 7 days week together with Monday and of course Friday.
so to make the next ten Sundays something special i´ve decided to start a countdown, but not only a Sunday countdown but also a countdown from 10-1 of my favorite albums of all time,
you see i´m a list kind of guy, i love making lists, but the hardest one is the one i will present to you dear readers the next ten Sundays.

Albums have always been a mystery to me and my friends causing more than one ill tempered discussion, what is a great album, what makes a album seem whole, what dose not,
is it the songs or is it the substance of the whole work, the issues are many and i hereby invite you to comment on this as we´re getting closer and closer to No 1.

as much as i like making lists, i enjoy reading them as well, so do feel free to post similar lists at you own blogs,

i will of course post other things too during the rest of the year, but every Sunday will be presenting a new album from my list of HERR W ALL TIME FAVORITE ALBUMS.

enjoy,

see you next Sunday,

your

HR. W

the best 150nok (17.7725euro) i ever spent

I was back at Gamla on Friday, haven´t been there since the Arthur Brown concert, to see three bands, well actually i was there to see two bands Thee Mono Sapiens, and The Launderettes, but the headliner The cynics was new to me.

so finaly Thee Mono Sapiens entered the stage and what a set, what a band, i was blown away a true live band. after seeing the zoom bands it was something of reliff to see a proffecional band course they were at least last night. the music, well check them out.


The Laundrettes is a garage band i´ve always have wanted to see,
i thought the sound was a bit poor, but the performance was great, check them out as well,



Then there was this band called The Cynics that i have never heard of, but hey i´ve never been to Russia, and only seen one Ibsen play so don´t listen to me!

The Cynics was fantastic, i hit me so hard i just trough away my beer and joined the pit, ah what a great thing to do, just embrace the music, let it take you away, smash in to people, and just smile coz that's what i ended up doing, i don´t know its probably something wrong with me, or its the Autumn, but everything seems to have a big impact on me nowadays,



"but i like it, love it, like it love it, like it love it like it, love it, get it on!"

Iwalked home soaked in sweat and beer,

H.W.

I was a skater

It turned out to zoom 2007 Ms I had invited me to see, and this was the hardcore night with tree of Norway's up and coming bands of that gene,
and i had fun, the bands were hard alright and loud, and some how that was what i needed. I´m a child of the 90s and when the people in my class listened to
ace of base, 2unlimited, dj bobo and so on, me and a friend listened to Sepultura, Faith no more, gnr, Pantera, and of course the Norwegian black metal scene which
explode around 92-93 and i was there with my Byrzum, Mayhem, and Darkthrone Cd's. my father pulled his hair, and i hid under a three reading about runer, Odin and Thor etc.


While at it i have to confess more from my childhood; I was a skater, i was a skater even before one was aloud to skate in Norway,
and last summer i met a friend Herr Kev we used to skate and we had a great time talking about the old days, and he showed me some pics he had taken during the skate wave in Kirkenes in the early 90s, and this showed up;


its me alright,

yours,

H.W

Less Jesus, more Ibsen

i´ve decided to cut down on the courses i take this semester, and it feel great.
i guess i first felt kind of defeated, but now i realized that this makes me able to do more of the things i like, and to work more, read more non Jesus books), and to hang out with you of course.

the two courses i ended up sticking to is theology and literature, and Christology, which are both very interesting courses.


(Photo : Johannes Elbert, 1891)

i´ve started reading Hendrik Ibsen again, and what great plays they are, now I´m in the last act of Rosmersholm; what a drama.
the whole Ibsen kick started when i read an article about how Ibsen's men uses different ruler technique to keep their women down.
among others the "Sickness metaphor" is often used when the women starts to answer back; "you are sick", or even "you are sicker than i thought" this to explain for the women and for them self the rage they have caused.
in Rosmersholm Johannes Rosmer uses this to explain why his Beate have committed suicide but soon enough finds that he might as well have caused it him self.

With this in mind i now have to read everything all over again, and isn´t this what makes literature so fantastic; that you get older and have to read everything over again, you read an article, or a different book and so on, i hope Lilly will comment on this.

and everybody else...

My friend Ms I is taking me to a concert tonight, hmmm wonder what it can be?

yours,

truly,

Herr W

Film fra sør.

"Water" marked the ending of film fra sør, and what a fantastic ending that was.
During the last ten days i have seen six movies on the festival and that is a lot for a guy like me who rarely goes
to the movies. But some how festivals helps me out of the streets and in to the theaters.

"Invisible waves" which i already told you about was another trip in to the universe of Pen-ek Ratanaruang, an universe i strongly recommend.
especially "Last life in the universe".

Then it was yet another film from Thailand; Wisit Sasanatieng´s "Tears of the Black Tiger" a Thai Western Homage.
It was extremely kitchy with Thai men performing the coolest western lines you can imagine, and the hardest of them all The Black Tiger.

(The Black Tiger)

More comedy with "Saratan" from Kyrgyzstan, about everyday life in a Kyrgyz village. I find that the director Ernest Abdyjaparov tells more or less the same story as Hiner Saleem did in his Armenia set;Vodka Lemon
from 2003, about how the Soviet Union periphery disintegrated when the money as well as the warm water, and electricity disappeared after the fall. "Maybe we didn´t have freedom of speech but we had jobs."
One of the highlight is when the local sheriff tired of nagging puts both the local communist and the visiting representative for Jehovah's Witness to jail, in the same prison cell.
See them both, though i liked vodka lemon better.

In the Malaysian "The last communist"( which was the only documentary i saw at this festival) the director Amir Muhammad truly found a genius way to tell his story both about
the legendary Malayan communist leader Chin Peng as well as he manage to tell me a lot about Malayan history and how the country is today. Loved it, and spiced with psychedelic songs with a Casio-like arrangement i walked out a smarter and happier man.

"The Court"was the only African film i saw, and the only film that made me feel really bad, but who don´t when one is presented for the truth about the state some of African country's are set in by their debt to the west and in this case The World Bank and IFM.
The setting is an imaginary trail between Africa and the World Bank and IFM. Held in a backyard in Mali where people come and go, while Africans women and men, young and old presents their case for french judge. it´s a very heavy film and very good one.

"Water" won the festival competition, and my heart as well as many others, even though it´s a very sad story.
It takes place in 1938, Gandhi tours India, and times are changing, but not everything, the traditions still live on.
It tells the story about Chuyia who is widowed at the age of eight and according to tradition is sent to a house for widows where she has to spend the rest of her days with the other widows who is far from her age. this is a Truly spectacular film, but oh so sad.i say no more. Go see it.

next month;
Oslo International Film festival!

see you there!

at the movies,

Herr W

Royal Mail

After a day i have no problem labeling "low-close to non" royal, there is nothing like finding a paclet in my mail box,

an approx 7"x7" envelop labeled DO NOT BEND, carrying the Royal mail sticker i have learned to love so much.
the paclet contains a single that brings me one step closer to owning a complete collection of The Cure 7inches.

The Forest from 1980 is one of my favorites and nice to finally fit in with the others, and even though i bought it with
the legendary "radiophonic" sleeve last summer, it some how didn`t feel satisfying and i had to go for the one with the original p/s.

for the record the Record and Sleeve was as described; ex/ex, and with the new 45 in between "Killing" and "Charlotte" the "radiophonic"
made it to the wall safely underneath my tottenham scarf,

thanks Elisabeth II,

yours,

W

Blame it on the moustache.

oo my head,
... what happened,

i was invited to my friend Herr JHK´s release party, so i went there with my friend Herr B and Ms A, and Herr K who have finally moved here.
but before we went, i got the silly idea that i should go for a moustache, and so it had to be, that it was a evil moustache never crossed my mind,
but that it was came to the surface during the night.
the party was at the Norwegian society of composers lobby and the alcohol was free.
i felt great with my moustache and my Russian military tie, my favorite, room 217 got for me at one of his many trips over there, we say over there because we live
on the border.



Herr JHK introduced me to his professor Herr OAT with whom i had a very interesting conversation about Robert Schumann, my favorite composer, and
after hearing what i had to say he stated that i should go and write the ultimate Schumann biography. this made me very happy but now the evil within the moustache had
come to life so i drank a lot,
talked with everybody,
forced the DJ to play something Friday I´m in love by the cure,
and woke up in my bed,

how great it is to have Friends that live outside the city, so i went there to have a glass of water and watch the game,
Brann lost, but who cares when you got five kittens to play with, love cats, too bad i´m allergic,

back home i feel better,


and the moustache?

it had to go,

Herr W

see the moustache, but don´t say i didn´t warn you

I´ve cut my hair,
I´ve started wearing smart cloths,
I´ve given up drinking my coffee outside,

the Autumn is here and what used to be summer of 06, the best summer in years, is but a couple of vague memories,
but good memories,
i need them,

i need to remember how me and room 217 stood dirty and tired and watched Scissor Sisters at Roskilde,
being the complete opposite of us, a super fancy bunch of clean well dressed people singing and dancing,
what we shared with them was the happiness.

I feel stronger when i think of the butterfly who flew around on stage when Mercury Rev played on dotf,
or how great it was to finally hear Motorpsychos "In the family" performed live at øya,

it makes me glad to know that i was
brave enough to move to Oslo,
smart enough to start school,
cool enough to buy an anorak and embrace the autumn as it should be embraced;
with short hair,
warm cloths,
and
coffee.......... inside,

yours,

w

October air in Oslo

Today i slept till 3pm, it was fantastic, nothing, and i mean NOTHING beats a lazy morning/day in bed.
Then i walked out to breath the October air in Oslo, sat in a park for some time before i decided to get something to eat,


Indian i thought and went to a nice restaurant i know a block from the park, but when i came there i
noticed that i had forgot my money home. So i started walking home since i was really hungry and pissed,
but nothing (there is that word again) can stop me from going into an unexplored 2.handvinylstor, and one just
happened to show up on my way home, here i found Phillippe Entremonts Debbussy Recital, the original Colombia ML5614
mono edition. So now i had to run home to get my money, since it was only 25kr, approx 3euro, the bargain of the century.
I ended up buying pizza and eating it in my post-paper-work-chaos while watching The Simpsons 7thseson on dvd on my laptop,

Later me and Ms B the only one i know who share my passion for slow Asian film went to see Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's Invisible Waves on the opening night of Film fra sør,
a nice movie in deed, though i liked his LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE (2003) better.

walking home was incredible, its so cold now, its so nice, can´t help loving it, reminds me of home, and i some how makes me feel alive and real.

Safe at home; Ms R called me and we talked about books and why they are easier then most things.

(photo Room 217)

Now i´m enjoying my new record,

La cathédrale engloutie......................

yours

W