feeling out of place

Strange how some dreams come back. Sometimes after a long long time, and you don't know what triggered your brain. Specially when you can't think of the place, the people, the situation in there as anything related to your life. Still almost all the details ring a bell in the scene you remember when you wake up. Maybe even while you're dreaming. At least that's how it seemed to me this morning. Even though there was nothing really particular about the whole of it.

Just felt lost in a building, or more precisely a lobby, while searching for the exit. Guess I also felt certain that I knew the way out. But instead of finding it, looked like I was on a higher floor, in a big open area. And while looking at the folks sitting on leather sofas amongst big plants, to ask them which way to go, felt kinda intruding. Though they were just talking in couples, they seemed to be pretty private by their expressions. Suddenly found myself in front of an office, opening from this lobby, hidden in a corner. The door open, and I was told by someone in there, that they were waiting for me. Or they might just ask if they could help. But the fact that I brought attention to myself, instead of getting out on my own, filled me with a sort of shrill, like being discovered where I shouldn't be.

When I woke up my heart was beating completely out of rhythm. Who knows, it might have been some noise waking me, though right then everything was still. I could see through an opening in the blinds that the sky was the gray just before dawning. I knew immediately that I had this kind of dream before. In a way the characters seemed to be familiar. Could be just the atmosphere. I remember I was wondering a lot why on earth would I feel so scared, just by being asked. Maybe I am afraid to ask for help about something, as a matter of fact.


Story Sample - The Castle (Sandman, The Kindly Ones, prologue)

Silver Screen - Dreamland (The X-files Season 6)
Song Selection - Madonna: Bedtime Story

A Christmas memory

I lost my touch and interest
with verse, rhythm and rhyme,
Got overflown with all the rest
and didn't have much time

Electricity drew lines on the wall
rays of sun circled 'round and scrawled,
They put an eclipse behind the lamp
I loved your envelope with 47 stamps

try to imagine what silence looks like

Well, the cough wouldn't go away, though it's been nearly a week now that I 've been taking some medicine the prescribed for it. Spent some time in bed first, but I don't seem to have any symptoms of having caught a flue, not even a cold. It's just the cough, so there definitely must be something stuck there that irritates. Seems to almost cease, then the next day I don't seem to be able to stop barking with nothing coming up at all. Think I should have my chest X-rayed, just to make sure it's not something dangerous. It occured to me, since I had once a tumor removed from my body, that even though that was like five years ago, it's better to be preventive.

Otherwise it was a relatively silent period, maybe too silent. Been waiting for someone to answer mails, instead I was doing it; or longed for some stuff I'd ordered before to arrive in vain, and I've just found more and - since it's cheaper with all the extras than in the shops, and don't have to search where they're can be bought - ordered some more. Waited for some news jobwise with no result, so registered at more recruiters' sites, which I actually don't really trust would help. They never found me via those companies, well, except for this job that will end soon. So, it won't hurt, and it also makes me look on more big firms' web pages what vacancies they have. 

All in all this week did have that particular impression on me, it dragged past me so slowly, the days fell on their knees, you know the song. Though it was nice to have more time and energy to do things I wouldn't do in between the usual 12-hours shifts. Also looked more into Norwegian, both the housework, words we learned, and could pick more articles by browsing through a few newspapers. Honestly haven't read on in any of the two Norwegian books I'm in now. Instead a lot English fiction and fantasy. And watching movies, walking, talking and playing dice and cards with Mom and friends.

It might be all because I thought I've done all I could to stop this coughing, why I feel like I miss something I'm constantly yearning for, not sure. Just this strange, inexplicable sensation of not being quite able to enjoy some rest, and being away from work. At least not deep inside my soul, always looking for something, waiting to hear from someone.


Story Sample - Ray Bradbury: The Watchers

Silver Screen - Folie À Deux (The X-files Season 5)
Song Selection - Zero 7: In The Waiting Line

genetic evil in the world

Got a dry cough started a few days ago as a little itching in my throat that developed like a biological warfare into the most embarrassing barking spasms. Well, viruses are used in biological warfare, and who knows, when most people I know complain about the same stuff for months now, what's in the air, and where it's coming from... And it's just coming back in different forms, like all my friends, relatives have this thing going on, and attacking their different sensories. My problem's right now is that it doesn't matter what kind of natural help I'm using to help to get something coming up it's still only dry cough.

Also my Norwegian friend complains about this, and to that my Australian one which is quite away from Iceland, if the volcano would be suspected to cause this, but then all this started for all of us a long time ago. In Norway they had unusually dry and polluted air, well in Australia the biggest heat waves for a long while.
We talked about the volcano eruptions being part of the severe weather events that had occured in the recent years, just like the hurricanes. As if self-healing methods of the Earth to gain back the balance in the biosphere. The ironic thing with the lava and ash particles is that they are needed in a way for the air, and they're organic part of the circulation of the whole ecosystem. However they stop planes flying, for instance. On the other hand if you think of how much we destroy the ozone layer when using the stratosphere, and how all that influences the life on this planet...

It was funny too, that I've just read a short story by a Norwegian author I like very much, about a little guy getting very sick, and demanding a kinda syrup they have against caughing. Today, while trying to rest and cure myself, been listening to Eno's Thursday Afternoon on repeat. I find this one-hour long quiet piece of music so relaxing, it goes like a flow, so gentle and as if it was a self-supporting, self-enclosed system - very becalming and very likely helps in healing. I was watching some episodes from the 80's Twilight Zone series just the other day. Many of them were great and sometimes still shocking to see, but there was one in particular that worked my imagination to an extreme.

It's happening on a hot summer day when a mom and her son, while driving through lonely sun scorched meadows, meet an old man in a dirty suit, coming out of nowhere. They give him a ride, and he asks the mom to drive faster. He says the sun is after him. When he goes on telling stories about genetic evil, people coming out of the dry ground like locusts to devour humans, one tire goes flat. They stop and the mom fixes it, but when they go on the man goes on with his scary stories, too, so they get rid of him.
They take a bath in a lake somewhere ahead on the road. When it's time to go home, the boy asks if there is a different road they can take. He actually is afraid now that they can meet the evil described so vividly by the old man. Soon they are stopped by a boy younger then him in a bright white suit, who says he got lost while his family had picnic out there. So they take him with them, and while they're still driving, the summer night falls fast. Suddenly the little boy says something to the mom that sounds like insect noise, and the car breaks down. They look at the boy who asks them if they have ever wondered whether there was such a thing as genetic evil in this world.

Story Sample - Bjarte Breiteig: En liten gutt en gang (A little boy once)

Silver Screen - J.D. Feigelson: The Burning Man (story: Ray Bradbury)
Song Selection - Brian Eno: I Dormienti (The Sleepers)

In the gates of dreams

I'm falling into a strange and dreamless nap
and sure you lean your head into my lap
Like I believe my face is on your chest
every night I put it down to rest

But my eyes glow with dark peace of loneliness
or what I write is just a heap of mess
And as it happens, it has to be this way
or if it hasn't, what could I then say

meg sjøl

Jeg heter Jani, er førti år, og jobber hos et multinasjonal selskap som en analyst. Jeg har begynnt å lære norsk for omtrent to år siden, men hadde et halv år pause. I løpet av disse måneder leste jeg noen bøker på norsk for å øve på språket. Min favoritt er Bjarte Breiteigs noveller fordi han skriver morsomme og samtidig veldig dype fortellinger. De er ganske lett å forstå for utlendinger som kan noe norsk også.
Det er noen filmer jeg har sett og kunne forstå helt bra. Noen ganger bare med undertekster, da folk snakket med tydelig dialekt. Noen av filmene jeg likte best var Den brysomme mannen og Mannen som elsket Yngve. Kanskje fordi den andre spilles i Stavanger hvor jeg besøkte en god venn for noen år siden. Jeg har også noen norske kortfilmer fra denne vennen. En som jeg kan huske akkurat nå har tittelen Caravan, og er om et ungt par som krangler nok til at det blir livsfarlig.
Jeg har ventet på å starte dette kurset veldig mye, fordi jeg trenger å lære flere ord, uttrykk og grammatikk. Jeg må også gjenta noen ting jeg vet, men ikke brukte. Jeg håper at jeg kan norsk mye bedre når kurset slutter.

"all the heavy slumbers, cruel insomnias, vain dreams, spoilt pleasures, and infinitely diverse miseries that a great city contains"

Tonight I had a flying dream that I hadn't have for a good while. True it was not real flying, but it used to be like that before. Sometimes I had a walking stick and before I could realize I was going up in the air, as if on some invisible steps. This time I guess I was back that looked somewhat like the yard of my primary school, and it indeed seemed to be a kind of jumping competition. But then we could make it high enough so that you could call it flying. It took me like sliding down on the big wide steps of the main stairway from the top floor. Just letting my feet take the way down instead of stepping. Then as I popped out off the door and into the yard, where I think I just bounced like a ricochet, off the ground, and so catching a long twig that would help me forward, got then thrown on the roof. There I was speculating about the next jump, where to land to get enough speed for a bigger hop.

 
And as I was walking on the flat top of the modern part of the building, I saw a few life-sized McDo figures as if just waiting there for me. I might have had them in some earlier dreams of mine, not quite sure now, but there and then they didn't even surprise me. I wonder if they're representing danger or open threatening since I saw the movie adaptation of Stephen King's IT. I used to look up an old Book of Dreams when remembering details this clear. But sometimes they wouldn't help, not even the modern book that does have more relevant explanations most of the time. Also if I can come up with a very likely solution of the symbols, that's good enough for me. Anyhow as I reached the red-yellow clown - almost sure it was on his own by now - it started to make some low and deep grumbling noises instead of any talking. It was not frightening, though this might have been the goal, but still very distracting, and leaving me unable to calculate any safe landing plans. So it made it quite clear for me that my flying (freedom) successes were not welcome by the commercially expected (and forced), that's to put it simply, ruling by covering your eyes from your real chances.

Finally I met someone we spent some time with, in an old and partly or maybe mostly abandoned building. Sometimes I could see this person, and then without any obvious reason, only hear, and so guess of the whereabouts. But it was not like in my previous dream, when I only heard a voice as if a comment, so it didn't surprise me at all not to see the person it came from. Here it was rather different, and seemed like when this one was busy, and didn't want to be bothered, then simply became invisible. Then I could be convincing enough to gain seeing again. I'm uncertain if this was a ghost, but right there I found it was a person I knew before in my real life, and trusted or even loved.

Story Sample - Stephen King: The Tommyknockers

Silver Screen - Tommy Lee Wallac: It (story: Stephen King)

Song Selection - Roy Orbison: In Dreams

strange fascination fascinates me

It's been a while since I've watched some X-files, and even though the story I read last night was from a famous sci-fi author, but not a fantastic story. Still I had a dream where all such things happened and got mixed with elements that I only realized were from my real life, after I woke up. 

Think I was hanging out with as a boy of about ten with another kiddo, probably from the same class, though I don't remember I recognized him in the dream or when conscious. We dropped in at his place, and his mom sent him to have a bath (guess we messed ourselves while playing outside). I had to use the loo, and it was in another bathroom where the tub bottom was all scratched. So I thought this was where they bathed the dog. Funny you get such things on your mind when asleep. At least it's not a common situation or I didn't have reason to think of stuff like that lately.

Then somehow the mom with the daughter were in there, and we were discussing some more serious matters. Also I was a young adult or late teen, and so were the girl. We decided to get into the car and find a place in town. I also remember to have a seat pressed to the girl in the back of a car that even had a wider back above the wheels, making it look quite futuristic. The place was some kind of an old abandoned garage made of wood, inside a small backyard surrounded by walls. I remember we left the gate open wide, as the whole little street was completely silent in the twilight. (When I woke up I knew it was the street where the kindergarten I used to go to was, and later the way I used to go to primary school)

God only knows what we were looking for there - maybe our suddenly lost youth. For some reason, I felt like I needed to stay guard while the others were busy with their mission (I didn't feel much involved). So I was standing near the gate, and, using my hand to shade my eyes against the light coming from the garage/barn, I was looking up into the already dark sky, spotting moving lights amongst the many shiny stars. I recall - even now as I'm writing this - seeing one that I clearly found to be a plane moving smooth along its route, and some others that wouldn't bother me.

However all of a sudden something strange and inexplicable started down there. The daughter got somehow shrunk and closed inside - the best way to explain it would be, as if a ginnie in a bottle, so only her distorted face was visible, but that was projected on the surface of the wood, I guess. The others didn't seem to be anywhere anymore, no traces or clue, but I was looking for their memories, and found myself staring at some planks and nails on the structure of the barn/garage. Guess the only one who was still there with me, was the mom, but I could only hear her voice, suggesting to call the police, and also get away.

(Actually it could be that we got into the car after this, with the wider backside - which could easily happen in a dream, but also in reality/time that surprises us all the time with the way of its variations/dimensions.) And I am not quite sure because of this gap/switch in the story, if it was then that I was then walking out of this street, and looking on that square I could hardly avoid making my way home in real life (though in my dream I didn't recognize it). It was not dusk, but more like a cloudy morning, and some folks were around as on an ordinary day. Someone I saw from behind and seemed to have straw hair (literally made of straw), turned back, not looking at me with eyes, as didn't have one, but the face seemed to be made of sack canvas, and yet a pair of glass put on it under a hat.

This frightened me more than anything that went on in that little yard before. And I think it was then, that we were back there again, and showed the place to the police. As we stepped out to the street, we saw a chaotic recollection of the events we told them, as if an absurd Yellow Submarine scene, impressed on the back of a bigger vehicle. Some pictures cut out off the material world and moved in 3D, others difficult even to comprehend. The last thing I seem to be able to recall is an office I was sitting in at a computer typing the things, like I'm doing now, as if in a chat to a friend. Funnily then he answered, and I guess, he asked me to look at the display of the printer, or why else would I do that. There I read something like 'April's print fool'. And that's the end of story.

Story Sample - Ray Bradbury: The Whole Town's Sleeping

Silver Screen -  Rod Serling: The After Hours

Song Selection - Madonna: Skin

Tel-Aviv

It was no surprise to have all the flashbacks from the Spring Hill (that Tel-Aviv stands for) after I have just returned from there. I had actually arrived there in early May, and it did look beautiful like spring itself.

When the Shabbat started, and we finished working in the editorial, I used to go down to old Yafo. Sat in the shades, and read, or just looked down on the new city, and over the sea, into the distance.

But that was many years ago, and all of a sudden, I had certain streets and shop windows I used to pass when living there, on my mind again. This happened one of these days, without even having some nostalgic thoughts beforehand. And the feeling was so overwhelming, as if I've just come back home through that street.

Would be great to go back, but also quite complicated, and it didn't turn out as a financial success in the first place. Guess it would be even more difficult now, also all the explanations why do I want to go back now as a citizen, after leaving the country in half a year or so as a new immigrant.

Story Sample - Meir Shalev: The Blue Mountain

Silver Screen - Terry Gilliam: Brazil

Song Selection - Kate Bush: The Dreaming

job situation (Carol but not Christmas)

I admit that I have some fears now that the end of this job I have is getting closer. And also when I think about the people I worked with in these past 3 years, as many of them could be my children or close to that age. Say I find a similar job, the chances are big to get the same average team age. The problem is I'm not sure if I can survive another dynamically flexible, multinational (at my work 5% foreigners is too much to say, but then they should be paid better...) environment. One where everyone is encouraged to develop their own personal values, but strangely in a way that they all end up acting, thinking maybe even looking the same way.

Don't get me wrong, it's not the age I can't deal with, but the habits - or maybe not even that. It can be simply that it was only me and my friends taking our job seriously even as youngsters. While the majority of these people I work with now, prefer to find the easy way. So as an interpretation of the team work, leave the actual work for the others, while they try their luck with fanning the management, if you see what I mean... And the bad thing is that they succeed this way.

I do remember how it was like to work with people of my parents' age in my early twenties. I surely didn't care much about the personal stuff, but definitely did what I was supposed to. And did it with care, and on time, and in overtime if so needed. Of course, life also seems easier at that age, then with two decades added to it.

Still I do what I'm paid for, as I'm not one of those lucky folk who have jobs what they have talent for, and enjoy to do it. Nevertheless I try and do things at work the best as I can, also because I believe it makes things easier for me, and for my colleagues. But I feel quite bad since this is not what matters when it comes to who gets a job that needs the experience.

For instance, not so long ago, there was a vacancy in a similar, almost the same job I do now, inside the company. I applied for it, and was interviewed (bit funny that was, as if I came from somewhere else, and had not been working here for years...). Now the job was given to someone who did this job for two weeks, and my experience of half year was not convincing enough. I have my doubts whether they looked at my performance though. At the end of the interview, my boss-to-be asked me 'oh, yeah, and by the way, do you play any instruments?'. Well, I don't, and agree that if it was a musical institute it had some relevance. But since it's IT support...

However, now that another vacancy had been announced at the same team, I have applied for it again. This time they have even asked for an updated CV, as if they didn't have the one at HR. So I sent it with my application. Then in a few days the team leader asked if I could send it, not again, but as if I hadn't done it already. So, I have sent it again. Now I am waiting for a word about the same position I was once rejected from, and that was given to someone who is playing in a trash metal band, after all. Well I need to earn my living some way or another. Maybe I should start to learn how to play the guitar?

Story Sample - Konrad Lorenz: Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins

Silver Screen - Christmas Carol (The X-files Season 5)

Song Selection - Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

if you prefer climate change to global warming, what would you say instead of the distruction of the ozone layer - an ecological experiment?

I praise the rain

that comes again

though polluted

it brings migraine

It is changing

day by day
makes you wish
that it would stay

But the sun is
killing as it comes
it's just burning
hardly warms

Guess I should try again with haiku...  

Story Sample - Ryūnosuke Akutagawa: Rashōmon
Silver Screen - Franny Armstrong: The Age of Stupid

Song Selection - The Mamas & the Papas: Dream A Little Dream Of Me

viiii

Jeg husker dem spaserende langs en av de små vågene omkring Stavanger. Kanskje det var hele familien, men jeg kan se klart bestemor smile, og mor som sier til sønnen sin "viiii" mens hun kaster en gren ut i sjøen. Måkene flyr bortover og skriker. Nettopp på den samme måte "viiii". Jeg smiler alltid når jeg tenker på det, selv om det skjedde mange år før.

they're scenes before your eyes

I was watching through the Bowie video collection with the same old feeling I had so many times before doing so. What new can I see? Will I still enjoy it them? I have seen it all countless times before... But then that's the very answer - I've watched them again and again because I can't get bored with them. On the contrary, they stir my imagination, make me laugh, or sad beyond any explicable reason, and when I get to the end I just wish to see, and read, and hear more from whatever Bowie has done. His lyrics, his stories, his tunes, his artwork, his characters, even the animated ones like Boz in the Nomad Soul.

Even though I've always had a talent for drawing, painting, and arranging things, I remember what a big inspiration his impersonations of all the different characters in his songs meant to me. Made me try to sketch dozens of the photos featured on the album sleeves, and try different techniques. Here are a few.

Story Sample - Hugo Wilcken: Low

Silver Screen - Walter Stern: Survive (song: David Bowie)

Song Selection - David Bowie: An Occasional Dream

Musikk for flyplasser

This is a composition I wrote for a Norwegian course I'd applied for, as part of the test. I still don't have the result, as the course will only start in another week. I'm really looking forward to it, as I had a big gap in my learning. I am still reading books, watching movies, and chat with my friend in Norway now and then. But I definitely need to learn more grammar, gain wider vocabulary, and be familiar with more expressions. This is about my big-time fav, Brian Eno, and how I 'discovered' his music, and why I like it so much. (This version is now with my teacher's correction, and suggestions from my Norwegian friend.)

Jeg ble opptatt av musikken av Brian Eno da jeg hørte på noen album av David Bowie. Bare jeg ikke visste at Eno spilte på dem, fordi jeg fikk kopiene av Low og Heroes av broren min. Det var i 1986, i en verden uten internett, og bare tittlene stod på kassettene og ikke andre detaljer. Men jeg var helt sikker på at denne musikken aldri ville bli kjedelig for meg. 
Faktisk kjøpte jeg de første Eno-platene mine, på vei til en Bowie-konsert, og brukte opp alle  sparepengene mine. Det var noen av hans tidlige solo sanger lignende de rockalbumene som han spilte sammen med Roxy Music på. Noen av Roxy medlemmene jobbet med Eno på de første platene hans. Men det jeg lurte på var den såkalte ambientmusikken som var resultat av de musikalske eksperimentene Eno gjorde i studio. På grunn av den likte jeg Low og Heroes så veldig mye. Melodiene hørtes vakre og enkle ut, men samtidig komplekse.

Dette er typisk Eno-musikk, ren eksperiment og ganske detaljert jobb. Selv om de tidligere morsomme sangene hans også viste sannheten som han selv erkjennte: Han har aldri fått musikkutdanning. Det mente også uavhengighet av tradisjonene og så kunne han gå på veier som var enda uprøvet. Som han sa det, kunne han gjøre ting som ingen hadde tenkt på før, fordi det var uvanlig, og ikke populært. Dessuten brukte han studioet som et instrument, og komponerte sine stykkene der inne. Han skrev ikke aldri musikken og sjelden tekstene, før han gikk i studioet. Han var meget påvirket av komponister som Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Philip Glass, og mange andre som experimenterte med diverse revolusjonære metoder i sine egne tider. Eno spilte noen visse melodier opp på gjentagelse og lot dem bli noe nytt på en mekanisk måte.

Eno jobbet med massevis av bander, så lærte og oppdaget han mye som han brukte i sine verk. Ett av de betydeligste bandene for ham var Harmonia eller Cluster, som de kalte seg senere. Sammen laget de grunnen til ambientmusikk. Noe som inneholder lyder fra naturen eller andre miljøer som om de var sine egne lyder. Derfor jeg liker denne musikken så veldig godt. På den ene siden fungerer den som bakgrunnsmusikk, f. eks når man leser eller studerer. På den andre siden kan man bare lytte, og   alltid noe nytt til å finne.

Story Sample - Nick Cave: The Death of Bunny Munro

Silver Screen - Monthy Python and The Holy Grail

Song Selection - Gila: This Morning