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Weblog | I don't like the word blog, it's ugly. Anyway, new content happens here. (Swedish dito)

About me and the site | Twenty-something male who likes text. Obsessed with things such as books, reality, communication, and one or two tv-shows.

Archives | Things written here since... well, 2001. Some of it is good, some is utter shait.

Books | Books read, not books written. So far I've struggled to maintain unpublished.

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Links | Outwards, away, flee.

e-mail | J. Nicklas Andersson

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2001-08-26

I have several weak spots that digs deep down into my psyche and makes me do strange things. I’m pretty sure all do, but most are probably better at hiding them than I am. I say probably because I’m not too certain about that, some of my friends are rather transparent in some ways and closed about others; one of them is really into collage movies from the 80ies, preferably from “that fucking guy” John Hughes.

Me, I like dictionaries. I really like dictionaries. At a stf-con last year I came this close to buying a dictionary about the Russian language, but the lack of both small change and crispy green bills in my back pocket forced me give up the pursue. To the joy of someone else that ended up with the red clothed book — no pun intended, the book was actually red.

My current goal, which is not expensive at all, it to buy all the neat Wordsworth Reference-books. If you plan to buy only one, I recommend Dictionary of Phrase & Fable — the one stop for words like Sanchoniathon, Bye Plot and even, I kid you not, Potato. The last word even has a quote from Shakespeare. The book has some blind spots, but that’s only to be expected from a work, which was last updated in 1970.

Other things I like, which most people can’t seem to understand, is typography, remote controls, old Rik Mayal tv-shows, Mallrats and Bad Religion — which has a new cd out soon, next year. I also like movies such as Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension, but let’s not go there right now.

These are in no way supposed to be mistaken for obsessions. No, my obsessions are Curve, The West Wing, old typewriters, The Frantics (the comedy group from .ca) and metabooks. Yes, that’s even fictional metabooks or fiction that features famous authors as the main character.

So it’s hardly my fault that I from time to time leap into quote-mode where I pull out phrases from the radio show Frantic Times like a mad magician who just recently discovered the old rabbit/hat-trick.

Libraries are wonderful places. There is a special kind of air, an aura that brings peace to the troubled mind. It’s something with the shelves and the contents in them, the way they are lined up and sprawling from wall to wall, brimming and humming silently of dust. It feels good to aimlessly wander down the narrow artificial aisle and just exist in the moment.

But it all comes down to how the shelves are arranged. At the university the library is in a state of chaos. In the second floor they runs diagonal and the line-up is not particularly good. The first and third floor however is blissfully different. The third is really good, with small tables and comfortable chairs, and as if that wasn’t enough, one can look down on the people and the books on the floor below.

The thing is, I thing far too few libraries uses the Stonehenge-arrangement. I want more circles instead of squares.