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 So far I've struggled to maintain unpublished.

Photo | I like my camera and it likes me.

Links | Outwards, away, flee.

e-mail | J. Nicklas Andersson

Search the site

'The mind shapes reality'-fiction

Right now I’m in a Philip K. Dick-phase. No, I haven’t seen the Minority Report yet so that has nothing to do with it. The thing is that I had a tower of unread books that I thought that I should read. — and I wanted to read something paranoid realism deconstruction. And who was better at that the Dick?

I like the idea of his that reality isn’t static, tha we need to find out what’s real and what’s not for ourselves. As each and one of use create and recreate our reality constantly, we can’t as anyone else. To me, this is not some crackpot theory without substance. I’ve seen this in action myself to various degrees. Part of this phenomenon is also visable in politics where everybody sees the world through a different spectrum.

Yesterday, in a related story, Tommy told me that he was given a promotional t-shirt for the game Ubik. Neither he nor I knew anything about the game itself, wich is probably just as good. But the t-shirt sounded rather spiffy when he described it. I’m sorry old friend, I will have t kill you now. Or, maim you horribly... Okay, taunt you like never before till you give me the t-shirt. Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

Some words are better than others

I like words. No, on second thought I don’t. “Like” is far too bleak and half-hearted to be used here in. “Adore” is much more suitable.

(Today, in this vast boiler we call literature, words don’t matter much, much to my chagrin. They’re being used as Lego in various mismatched colours. “It’s a medieval castle, who cares if it look as if a colour-blind graffiti-painter had snapped and wrecked havoc on its walls? What’s important is that it has the shape of a castle with towers and all. Right?” But I digress.)

I’m extremely happy that I found a copy of The Word Lover’s Dictionary by Josefa Heifetz — it’s still in print so it wasn’t that hard, but anyway. It is filled with words that you never knew existed and a few that you did. After all, some of them have returned to use since it was first edited in 1974.

forel n. a book jacket.

mytacism n. using the letter M incorrectly or to an extreme.

nimious adj. extravagant.

poiesis n. creation; creative power or ability.

I almost question how I could ever have lived without it. It’s sad that things that once had a proper name has been forgotten and now only can be described by long, awkward sentences. I feel like a complete wampus.

Aye, give me a pint of coffee

Today it was meant that I should take it easy and relax. Just sit down, read the newsgroup and then finish of a book or two. This was what I wanted to do. What I did is somewhat related but not exactly in this order.

First of I had to go into town in order to buy a new notepad. I had no other option, as the one I had was now full of gibberish. I also needed a bigger pad to draw things on, but I found none that suited my refined taste in paper. Instead I found this pen, and I like pens a lot so I had to buy it. I paid and went out on a small walkabout in the city, I didn’t feel like going home just yet. There, at the horizon, something came walking towards me. It noticed me as well, waved its mighty paw, sauntered forwards at a steady pace and it was Boo.

He and this other person called Jennie (one of Boo’s amateur theatre friends, I think I got the spelling right) were about to have a coffee and since I had no pressing business I tagged along. Coffee is always nice. Well, most of the time coffee is nice. Bad coffee is not nice. Bad coffee vibrates in the air and sends out these subliminal warnings that only true coffee-drinkers can understand. This coffee was okay. The whole thing was fun, lasted about two to three hours and Boo wants to borrow pretty much everything I own. “Humpf” and such noises, but in that case I want to borrow his Donny Darko-dvd.

I’ve had coffee, so this day has been labelled as a success. No, I have to quit this, Time Team coming up right this instant on The Discovery Channel.

On the back of a rental dvd the extras listed included a trailer for Godzilla. Class.

The fist

     --They hate me!
My left shoe flies across the room as I kick my feet and tries to go back to my room.
     --No they don’t. Whatever gave you that idea?
I can’t get any further as a towering parental unit blocks my way. Deadlocked into a corner I try to figure out a way to escape.
     --They hate me, I just know it!
I scream despite the fact that I don’t need to. My voice is shrill and squeaky. I can’t stand it but I have little choice.
     --You’ll go to school no matter how hard you cry. So stop it and wipe those tears away.
The parental unit push me out through the doorway and slams it shut behind me. This was not the way I planned it.
     --They hate me. I wish they would die.
I whisper, afraid that someone might hear. I look about and I see no one at the schoolyard. Perhaps I’ll make it today without being beaten to a pulp, the hopeful thoughts withstanding, deep down I doubt it will happen.
     I walk across the road, I fly over the ditch and lands softly in the grass. Five metres and I feel the schoolyard under me, electrifying my feet. The air is thick and there are vibrations in that make me feel as if I should watch my back, that I should turn around. As always I don’t have that option so I cut the corner of the first building to my right. I feel a fist in my stomach. It hits me hard and I fold to the ground.
     --Hit him again! Harder!
The voice doesn’t belong to the fist, I know this because it never does. Never. Someone, a third person, picks me up and hold me up from behind while the fist hits me again. I wish I could take their heads and smash them into the concrete. To make the road turn scarlet. To strike back and bury my own fist in their faces, shatter teeth, crushing the nose, make them pay with fear and strip them from their pride. But I don’t — it wouldn’t be proper. Not just yet. I’ll turn their lives into a living hell.

Three movies and a wing

I have done lots of things, but I can’t find the right words to describe what. Be as it may, but I find it sad. Sad, even though I’ve said to myself in that high and commanding voice that “I shall not dwell on the past.” It’s hard. The past defines me and I keep coming back to it. History rhymes as Bruce Sterling once put it, so maybe that’s why I feel this deja vu.

I’ve seen three movies today though. So while I’m at it I might as well write about those. First out was The One with Jet Li. People claim that it was similar to the Matrix, but we all know how much we can trust people by now, don’t we? VR and multiverse have nothing in common, and as for fighting some sort of marshal art in an sf-flick? I don’t think that’s enough to pinpoint it down to Matrix-clone.

The second, the Score. It was very good all in all, although I start to question if Robert De Niro hasn’t burnt himself out or something. He had no energy and he seemed absent. Edward Norton and Marlon Brando was excellent, so they managed to pull it up above normal despite De Niro’s struggle with apathy.

The third was Enigma. It was okay. It also made me want to reread NEal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon which is a good thing. Anything that reminds me about that book deserves attention.

And soon it’s the West Wing. This day has been good to me.

Read these or do whatever you usually do when you're not following orders

I think it’s time for another list. Yeah, high time. This time however, I’ll make it a bit more difficult as I’ll motivate my choices. Sure, sure. You might not like them and some of you might even find them offensive. Five books that you should read (should here being used in a pushy and demanding way but it’s not necessary).

5. Steven Brust & Emma Bull: Freedom & Necessity
Although written by two fantasy authors, this is really historical fiction. A fabulous historical novel presented as an epistolary. This might not sound like the premise of a good book but it is. The basic thing is that James has lost his memory and writes to his friends. They thought he had been dead for some time and together they try to unravel the foul business that’s the cause of this. Of course, since this is during the industrial revolution, things are not as easy as it seems. Lots of accurate history as well as good writing in general.

4. Christopher Priest: The Glamour
I had a hard time to assemble this list, mainly because of Priest. In the end, because I said to myself: “Nicklas, you can’t fill the entire list with Chris Priest-books,” I chose this one. As usual, the reader is treading very murky ground indeed here. Genre-tropes are really nowhere to be found, but there is still a feeling that links it to several often contradictory literary fields. So don’t even bother to try to pinpoint the books genre in any way because you’ll end up mad. The book is about reality and how traits such as charm affect it. But that’s how I see it. The important part is of course the narrative.

3. Iain Banks: Espadair Street
Iain Banks so called “mainstream” is much better than his sf. This is a fact. This is my favourite Banks story. It is not complicated in any way, quite the opposite. The most complicated thing is the two timelines, and those follow the conventional path where one is the present and one of them is about the past. What it does is to give the aging rock star-myth a spin. It is not glorious, and the main character just wants to leave it all behind him, never to be reminded again.

2. Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan

“The morning of the next day opened drearily, the sun appearing only after protracted periods of half-light, and then only as a pale paper disc, more like the moon than itself, as, for a few lack-lustre veils descended with almost imperceptible motion over Gormenghast, blurring its countless windows, as with a dripping smoke. The mountain appeared and disappeared a score of times during the morning as the drifts obscured it or lifted from its sides.”

I don’t think I need to say something more, do I?

1. Wilton Barnhardt: Gospel
This is religious fiction. No, really. But it’s brilliant despite this. It has everything one can wish for: a lost gospel that some would want to remain lost, an alcoholic ex-Jesuit, a 29 year-old theology PhD student, bickering between the different beliefs and a smart-ass Holy Spirit. Oh, and it has these lovely excerpts from this lost gospel as well.

Nothing to watch and lots of spare time

Usually they, and by they I mean all the tv networks together, show fotball (the kind that the goons on the other side of the pond calls soccer, both are just as crappy if you ask me) on one, maybe two channels and that is it. Usually. This year they’ve gone crazy and when they do that they also drive someone crazy. Someone here being me. So far they’ve left the reruns of West Wing alone — thank God and Jesus and that guy who was in that movie I saw last year.

When they don’t show the fotball live, they show reruns. They show best of the game-synopsis. They show scoreboards. And I, I hate it. But in a way it’s a relief. It means that there are less things to be preoccupied by, less crap I mean. The frequent reader might recall that I have this compulsorary disorder that forces me to watch crappy movies whenever possible. (It made me watch She’s All That. It’s horrible really, but one learns to live with it.)

So I’m going to use this opportunity, because when it is gone, it’s gone and I’ll have to return to my normal self. And I’m going to use all this time, all these hours, to read things I really should have read by now. Faulkner, Waugh, Burroughs, Jeter, Ballard, Coupland, Self, Ford.

See you, see me

If I had kids or employees (in the case of Nike, I believe they’re the same), I could know what they where doing this very instant. No, really. I got this spam about this new über-software that allows me this. I don’t know exactly how it works, but apparently the software must connect to the person-tracking satellite that’s up there in orbit. Limited use of course, uncontrolled personnel can’t have unlimited access to equipment such as that.

If you upgrade to the pro version, then you might gain control of the mind control-satellite as well as a book with fifteen billion email addresses — including your own!

(Question: since spam don’t work, why do they still insist of doing it?)

Those Royalists

-- This near-death experience has given me a new perspective on things.
-- But dad, you never were dying.
-- I know! I’m gonna live!
(Gene Hackman and Luke Wilson)

I’ve finally seen the Royal Tenenbaums. It was even better than I believed it was going to be. Much better. Even Owen Wilson managed to actually perform and embody his character. Why doesn’t he stick to writing and acting in things such as this instead of being a part of bad action-flicks?

But I must see this again. The dvd should be released shortly. Yay.

Sell thy soul

There is this thing about soul. Not the music, but the mystic mass of energy that supposedly empowers the human beings and cute animals (but not the ugly ones.) Some religious people say this is what makes humans divine and in His grace a worthwhile diversion from more important matters.

But if the thing exists we can function without them, see all the examples in the glorious animal kingdom where awful beasts behave just as the cute ones. So I recon I could live without the soul. Sell it of to the highest bidder. If it doesn’t exist I have lost absolutely nothing and if it does... Let’s say I have no problem with that since I don’t believe in hell, and if it does exist I’ll probably end up there anyway.

This is what I would like to sell my soul for:

10. A nice bike.
9. To be the best bass player this side of the road.
8. Star Wars original trilogy on DVD without the extra enhancement-crap.
7. The entire collection of Theodore Sturgeon’s work in hardcover. Sturgeon wrote like a God.
6. To have an Irish accent whenever I speak English because that is the way it is supposed to sound.
5. A signed first edition of The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers. I haven’t read this one.
4. Proper growth of beard. As it is, I can’t have a beard.
3. To have the cans containing the Wicker Man-footage found and turned into a super restored version.
2. The Flash Girls first album, The Return of Pansy Smith and Violet Jones. (As You Know Bob fact-of the-day: At least some of the liner notes was written by this guy and can be found at their homepage.)
1. To be able to write as a God.

South Park Studio

If one has lots of spare time, one can visit South Park Studio and make your own characters. This above is probably what I would have looked like if I had been in the show.

Batteries dead

It was hot in the bus. The air could have been replaced with molten lava and I wouldn’t have noticed any change. I tried to do the best of the situation so I cranked up Garbage on the Discman and tried to sleep. This was a folly idea, as always. I wanted some peace and quiet, the world wanted otherwise.

Two seats behind me they sit. A guy and a girl. They don’t know each other — that much is evident — but they still go on and have a booming discussion. I raise the volume and drift into euphoric bliss. Then the batteries died. Twenty minutes left on the trip and I had to sit and listen. The guy didn’t spoke much but the girl did.

Her will to have a conversation was connected to a piston engine on overdrive. She just kept on going without any notion to ever stop. Each silent pause was a treat to this planet and had to be fought ferociously. Silence kills. So she kept on babbling about whatever she could think of.

-- And then we had to stand outside or else her father would have entered the pub in his pyjamas and dragged us out.
-- Really?
--Yeah, he would.

I stared to hum in order to keep my mind occupied. I didn’t want to know. I still don’t. I’ll have nightmares about old men driving around in cars in the middle of the night, dressed in ugly pyjamas and that has nothing else to do but to drag people into their cars. And all this because I didn’t have any spare batteries.