DLTQ.org

On Thursday, I will attend an event organized by Gyldendal, the biggest publisher in Denmark who also publishes the translated works of Norwegian author Erik Fosnes Hansen. The last days I have been reading Løvekvinden, which was published in Norway last year and will be published now on Friday, May 25th, here in Denmark.

I don’t know whether there will be any chance to ask questions to the author, and if so, what I would like to ask. I still have not finished the book - I started on it on friday - but it reminds me of books like the classic Frankenstein’s Monster: A story of how a person/being who is prosecuted because of their looks. Frankenstein because of his grotesque features, and Eva, the girl turning woman that this book is about, because of the golden fur that covers all of her body, even her face.

I read a Norwegian review of the book here, and I cannot help but agree with the reviewer. It seems that Erik Fosnes Hansen in this case chooses to dwell on - admittedly - an eternal topic, but does not really bring any current themes into it. Or maybe he does. Maybe this could be the story of how people, arabs for instance, are being branded in the media. This classic image comes to mind, the totally unflattering image of one of the people who is said to be behind the 9/11 atrocities. Maybe I will ask about this at the Gyldendal event, or maybe I will make a link to comments in the book by Karen Lisa Salamon, where she talks about how total control of our bodily hair growth is seen as necessary in order to appear clean, effective, progressive.

At least it will be interesting to see how a book that has undergone some months of criticism and discussion in my homeland Norway will - perhaps - be received differently here in Denmark. And who knows, maybe I will be allowed to take some footage from the event.

It has mostly been a sad weekend so far. On friday, while I was reading the new novel Løvekvinden by Erik Fosnes Hansen, I slowly realized that … I cannot recognize myself.

Since the injury and the head concussion at the end of march I have not only been very passive, but I have also been extremely irritable. Just the slightest thing can turn me into a flaring fire inside. Yesterday I was in a particular bad mood, feeling very isolated, passive. I remember sitting in a cafe, with a coffee, trying to read, and I couldn’t get any further at all. The text on the book turned into a tumbling sea of letters. I felt hints of the old nausea, but it wasn’t too bad. I wanted to talk with someone about it, but I didn’t know where to turn. I didn’t want to bother my family about this; they will only repeat their insistance that I should return home, to Norway, relax for a few months, and then re-find my real passion and go for it from there. I tell them that I am fine, here, I enjoy the work at the bookstore, I want some stability now, I found a new apartment now, where I can have my own space, head-space, be me. I tried to reach out to some others, but they either are too busy with their lives, or I don’t know them well enough to want to talk about these more private issues (and yet, hah!, I am blogging about it her). I was irritable. I felt abandoned, yet I knew I was also the one pushing people away.

So, last night, I finally had enough. I’m done with this. Not this, but that. Done for good.

The good thing about working in the bookstore is that I am not dependant on the vlogosphere / blogosphere for my survival. I don’t need to kiss any web 2.0 VC or CEO shoes or do the appropriate @’s on Twitter to be able to do my thing. As I wrote earlier, I have some video concepts now. I am more formally going to work with the artform. Push things further, further.

For half a year, I have promised Erik Nelson that I will do a video for Carp Caviar. It is a video collaboration with Philip - he mainly does the audio, I the visuals. He already provided the audio months+months ago, I never felt ready to do the visuals. I know some things about how I want it to be, look, feel, but I do not know the rest. Now that I will move in to my new apartment next weekend I will slowly begin working on this again.

I don’t know what to do with my flaring mood, it’s almost like a tick - I did some research and I found this page that gave it a name: Post Concussion Syndrome (PCS). Wee, I now suffer from a syndrome. I’ve always been a person who can easily snap at you with a comment, and I certainly come across as a person who is quite rude at times (but my anger always passes in some moments), but it has not been like this before. So I guess my solution for now is to withdraw further. I will work this out. I will consult my doctor some more. I will blog/vlog some, but I will disable comments (yes, not good blogging form, but I frankly don’t care). I will mostly stay off IM systems.

How long will this go on? I hope it will pass by the end of summer. I don’t like being like this. I don’t like the feeling when I read something online, or in the newspaper, and it just starts boiling inside; a bursting volcano: “The stupidity!”

After Løvekvinden (which will actually be published on May 25th here in Denmark by Gyldendal - I am reading the advance copy sent to the bookstore), I will turn to Tor Nørretranders “Civilisation 2.0“, which was also recently published here in Denmark, and then I will return to Virginia Woolf for a book - she is an old favourite of mine.

I am definitely turning inwards into my own bubble here in Copenhagen and the world of books. I will probably be deleting quite a lot of the videos/blog entries I have published here and elsewhere - I cannot stand how things look now. I will however try to create new things as well.

I am sorry if I have offended you the last months. It has been a rough ride.

Now I will go outside, enjoy the sunshine and the book - is actually quite good.

In my youth, I was a comics book buff. I had almost all the Cerebus single issues, I had all The Sandman issues - besides the #1 - but I had them all in signed hard-cover copies, and I loved works like Sin City, Stray Bullets, and so on ad infinitum. I even worked in a comics book store for over a year.

Last year I read Persepolis, which is a great graphic novel set partly in Iran, partly in Austria. If you haven’t read it, or other works by Marjane Satrapi, I suggest you give it a shot.

Today, via, I learned that there is a Persepolis movie on it’s way. Here is the trailer, in french.

I am really looking forward to this. I have, in general, a love/hate relationship with movie adaptions of comic books. I really liked Sin City, 300 was so-so, and then you have all the movies like Spawn ..

I really hope Persepolis gets a good Danish distribution.

By the way, here is a vlog post I did in early 2005 about comics. Oh, and Marjane Satrapi has a blog, and on their MySpace page they have videos.

chaos
cityscape
scapegoat
purplerain
servicesecret
flimmerflicker
imagesglobal
immediatemoment
timetravel
bling-bling/glitterati
technorati/rate my videos based on how many thousands of viewers I have
videoblogging/blogging/web/log/logging our lives
second
time
lifetime
living/forward
symbolic violence
narration
narrative power games
the stories we tell each other at night
worldly
esoteric
exoteric
exotic
hiddenspring
copenhagen
summertorch
volleyball
now
soon
passport
norway
nationalism
flags
dresscode
codes of honor
covert action

inert

inert

inert

//
i move in to my new apartment next friday.

[source]

This last weekend I finished Putin’s Russia (da / en) and continued on Pamuk’s The New Life (da / en), but yesterday’s publication of “Selvmål” by Karen Lisa Salamon (da) caught my attention to the degree that I immediately got it and started reading that instead. I guess non-fiction > fiction in my world.

I had read Jørgen I. Jensens “Jeg-automaten” (da) with great interest late last year, and even though I do not agree with all his points, the way he questioned parts of the huge coaching/management/self-coaching trend really struck me. Where Jensen approaches this from a theologian point of view, Salamon seems to have a more humanistic entry-point. I have not reached far into the book yet, but I will find ways to represent my reading of it, and my comments surrounding it, here on dltq.org the coming week.

(Hmm, too bad that GAD Internet doesn’t have any introduction to the book on their site yet. Maybe I will talk with the manager there and volunteer to write some reviews for the site.)

I just read an interesting blog post from FactoryJoe, where he says this:

Promoting women when they’re doing great things in the tech community has to become a top priority. Providing and seeking out the women who are serving in backbone roles within our community and bringing the spotlight to them and supporting them must become a shared priority. Working with women’s groups to create both inviting events and interesting opportunities to draw out and inspire the reluctant or hidden female talent is something that conference and *camp organizers alike must attend to.

[source]

I remember the feeling when I looked around the people present at VlogEurope 06 in Milan. There were quite few women among us, even though I do not remember quite what the ratio was. I remember talking with Schlomo about this, and he told me that it really took a concentrated effort to get so many females to attend VloggerCon in SF. You simply cannot have a bunch of - well - white guys - sitting together planning an event where you basically invite mostly male voices to present. Female participation in tech conferences does not come by itself, I guess.

We are well into May now, and VlogEurope* 2007, which is the first weekend of September in Heidelberg, Germany, is only four months away. What kind of conference do we want this year? What will we do to include more females in the discussions, or more voices from the middle- and Eastern European countries?

What do you think? How can we include more voices into the discussion? What would make more women interested in these kinds of meet-ups?

* : Yes, we will update the VlogEurope website soon