jean cocteau / and why one should learn french and german

read a couple of his plays a few weeks ago when I was in sweden, and I cant wait to read more. too bad that not everything he wrote has been translated from french. I guess I just have to learn french (again).
one of the plays I read was this one: the human voice. here acted by ingrid bergman


this is a different documentary than the one I posted before.. this one is called jean cocteau - autobiography of an unknown artist. it is very very good. I love this guy.



the main reasons to learn french:
to read christophe honorés books
to read antonin artaud
to read jean cocteau

main reasons to learn german:
to be able to listen to thepodcast Im Sumpf from FM4 (subscribe in itunes)
to read the michael ende things that hasnt been translated
to listen to german rapgroup: blumentopf
to read christian kracht
to watch top notch theaterperfomances
to listen to poet/musician/greatnessguy: peter licht

(most of these german tips come from my good friend leander)

feel free to make similar lists in the comments-field. more reasons to learn french/german/another language?

leander adds the following reasons to learn german: Thomas Bernhard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Einstürzende Neubauten, Texta, Werner Herzog, Ulrich Seidl, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Burg Theater Wien, Volksbühne Berlin, Die Sendung ohne Namen, Element of Crime.
(however; Herzog, Fassbinder and Seidl are possible to get translated)

jenta som så dyr

i dag etter yogaen og meditasjonen var over, bøyde en ung jente seg fram til læreren og spurte om han pleide å se et dyr, et stort svart dyr med to store lysende, skremmende øyne, når han mediterte.
nei, ikke egentlig, svarte læreren så pedagogisk han kunne, selv om det var tydelig at spørsmålet overrasket ham.
det er forskjellig hva som kommer til en. noen får gode idéer og blir veldig kreative, andre igjen tenker kanskje ikke så mye, sånt er forskjellig fra person til person.
men det er vel ikke farlig? spurte hun.
neida, det er bare tanker, svarte han.
hun virket tilfreds med svaret. etterpå hørte jeg henne si til en annen ung jente på holdet vårt mens hun grøsset med hele kroppen;
man blir fylt av sånn en gledesfølelse. en litt ubeskrivelig en. gjør ikke du også det?
den andre jenta ristet litt på hodet, ikke for avvisende heller ikke for bekreftende.
joda, svarte hun, men jeg tenker mest på at jeg ikke alltid forstår hva man skal gjøre mens vi mediterer og man kan liksom ikke spørre.
den første jenta nikket (også) et halvt avkreftende/bekreftende nikk.

etter vi hadde skiftet og bare den første jenta og jeg var igjen i omkledningsrommet, så jeg henne forsvinne inn på toalettet. jeg tok på meg jakken og noen øyeblikk gikk forbi mens jeg fiklet med glidelåsen. helt plutselig, inne fra toalettet, begynte jenta å le. en rungende høy latter som gikk over i ubehøvlede latterhikst. jeg gikk litt nærmere for å høre om det virkelig kom fra toalettet, hvilket det gjorde, vi var jo alene. jeg ble ubesluttsom. bli eller gå, bli eller gå.

dette minner meg veldig om antichrist tenkte jeg og gikk.

tonight

I was supposed to watch these guys play tonight, bombettes and international noise conspiracy

bombettes last year at that festival I should have been at:




but they were playing outdoors and it was raining. I stayed at home and watched the following two movies in stead:





I love my goldfish-like memory when it means I can watch movies again and again and again. (steve zissou)

the Rocky-movie was my first one ever, and I should watch all of them. same goes for the terminator movies.

should I?

copy pasting information and pictures from this website

What did they take? - Your Information

What did you give? - Your Information

What are you getting? - FEAR & TREMBLING

WTF?

They divorced your identity from your consciousness.

A facebook profile page at a moment in time is unresponsive and inanimate.

But you WANT it to be CONCIOUS, you want it to be an accurate reflection of your IDEAL concious identity as it exists in REAL LIFE.

It will be BETTER than the REAL you and the UNREAL others.

And in YOUR struggle to re-unite the two, and animate your identity, you will feed it with information.

EVERYONE PUMPS THE ORGANISATION WITH INFORMATION.

BUT you will never bring it back to life. You will never make it better. Nor will the others get better.

Your INFO prayers are SOLD.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW?

Did you fall in love online?

Are you capable of powerful emotions in the real world?

Is that you? Is that an organisation pretending to be you? TO YOU?

Wake up?

my own thoughts on the issue:
have I fallen in love online? yes, as a matter of fact. several times.
in real life? yes that too.
am I aware that people seem nicer on the internet than in real life? yes.
does internet then resemble real life? no
but liking people based on their internetpresence cant be wrong, can it?
they could be great people IRL also. I choose to believe this.

but yes. fb, myspace and the like are identity "thiefs"
and more, the narrative identity.. before fb if someone were to ask, what is your favourite book? it wouldve taken me some time to think it over and answer. now its all built-in and I have readymade answers for such. but its not the books we like or the movies we like or the music we listen to that makes us who we are. or is it? has the internet narrowed it down to such?

identityissues and internetpresence has got me all confused. I wish I could delete facebook, but I think that is utterly impossible for me. IRL-jannicke and web2.0jannicke are merging. they might not be that different from eachother, or at least I dont want them to be. this is a complex issue. I couldnt just delete that part of me, I think.

also,
if we say that our identity are made up of the several roles we play in social settings, then internetjannicke is one of IRLjannickes social roles, (without that meaning that I have a multiple personality disorder. this is again a postmodern theory on identity) which also should make the internet one just as true as the one I am in real life. or at least equally true as any of the other roles I consist of and that make up me.

go ahead, falsify me. I am writing this in a half sleeping state anyway.

on Erica Ascot, simulacra, identity and Harmony Korine

who was Erika Ascot?

ok, so for those of you living outside of sweden, I am not sure how well-known this phenomenon is

and I am not sure I want to reveal it all at once either
so I will go step by step

(for me)
it started with someone adding me on facebook
we had no friends in common,
I checked out his page and saw that he was from umeå

I added him.

I then realized I didnt add him as a limited profile
and that this man was a complete stranger to me
a welldressed stranger but nonetheless

yesterday he had put some images up
I got curious and looked through his albums

the album from last week had some rather morbid pictures
the album started with an invitation to the spreading of erica ascots ashes.
it also said: wear black
then the following pictures were of fashionpeople wearing black with white lillies in their hands walking

I thought to myself ok, interesting (more like goddamn, how strange) to put this on facebook. I guess a funeral also has become an event to share with the world in pictures but it is a tiny bit unusual and strange.
the most peculiar I found were all the fun they seemed to be having afterwards.

I googled her name and came over her blog
the blog of Erica Ascot.
an 18-year old stocholmer
who killed herself

but the text was a bit weird,
and how did her parents or her friends get her login so they could send a last message through her blog?

I started to read through the blog. backwards.

it seemed to be a very depressed girl with an amazing eloquence who had written it
it described her life in stocholm among all of her dresses and shallow life and with a caretaker/aunt whom she deeply despises.

what led me to continue on reading was her choice of words and her strange and romantic obsession with death.

one post was a bit stranger than all the others
and it was the one saying:

Jag ska intervjuas för TV. En underlig känsla. Egentligen vill jag inte. Inte för att jag är nervös, men
för att jag är trött. Jag är trött som om jag levt i tusen år. Vet PRECIS vad de vill. Lyfta upp mig i studioljuset.
Hålla mig mellan tummen och pekfingret som tre dagar gamla sopor.
Plommonvin och skärsår! Är det vad ungdomen behöver för att känna att de lever?
Javisst säger jag, och ler dekadent. En mörklila droppe i mungipan. Det är nya tider nu!
Fast det inte alls är nya tider, utan samma gamla tider som fick Isabella att att dricka växtgift eller
Yasunari att gasa sig. (eller älskade)

and this one

Blek sol nu. Himlen vit som papper, svarta fågelsiluetter. Jag förstår.
Ville bara inte erkänna det, men det är inte jag som skapat det här. JAG är bara himlen där fågelvingarna ritar sina bokstäver. "Jag" är bara pappret där ni skriver.

Tack alla ni som länkat till min sida. Alla ni som blivit mina vänner på Facebook Till och med nu när himlen är nästan svart och alla (utom jag) tycks veta att jag bara är
ett påhitt. Till och med nu kommer ni hit.
Fler och fler tills himlen är nästan mörk av fågelvingar och texten inte längre går att läsa.

that was when I realized that I had seen something on tv some weeks ago.
about a very popular blog that had been revealed as a scam.
that there were two people behind it
who pretended to be a young girl
and I suddenly realized I had fallen for the trap
that I had believed the whole thing
even weeks after everyone else knew it was all madeup

I started reading the comments on "her" blog and discovered that people were mourning the loss of Erica Ascot

even though they knew she wasnt real they didnt care.
they had felt an understanding through her words,
and they were deeply, deeply sorry.

Having read Jean Baudrillards theories on hyperrealism and simulacra that exists in these postmodern times the last few days, I suddenly realized that it is true. The hyperreal is referring to a collapse between the real and simulation. It can no longer be distinguished between, and reality and simulation are therefore existing side by side, and experienced without difference.
John Storey (2006) states, it is not that people cant distinguish between fiction and reality. It is the fact that in some significant ways the distinction has become less and less important..

we dont care whether it is real or not.

I dont care that Erika Ascot was made up.
I loved her phrasing and I wanted to read more
and I mourn over her suicide.
I am sad that I didnt discover her blog before.
I might have felt different about it then
if I had read it for months and months and then suddenly was told it was a pr-stund and she didnt exist.
perhaps it would have felt like a slap in the face.
but I dont think so.
there are two real people behind it with a very high degree of understanding
of a young girls mental problems within a world of pretend
..and with an incredible taste in words put together.

I found this video from the "funeral" and I like the words this very welldressed lady is reading out loud.

Remembering Erika Ascot from pivic on Vimeo.

(my friend on fb is the one spreading her ashes, and the girl next to him is a contact on flickr. I have never met any one of them)

on another but very similar note,
it also somehow fits close to the assignment I am writing about Harmony Korine and his Mister Lonely for school.
Harmony tells a lot of stories about what he has experienced in the years he was not making movies. Among others, he tells a story where he lived with a sect in Peru that worshipped a very special fish. A piano fish. It had been caught like twice in the last century. The fish would sound like a piano when you pressed his fins.They spent whole days looking for it. It could be true. I dont know. Perhaps he was in rehab, and this was the imaginary world he was inside at the time.

When people doubt mr. Korines stories, he replies: "So what? Everything is just stories anyway. It doesn't matter to me if you believe them or not". And in some ways this could be true. Our identity is a narrative identity. It is made up by the stories we tell about ourselves. And even though Erica Ascot was all made up, what difference does that make, really? I still liked her, and I will miss her now that she is gone.

mister lonely

ikke bare er dette den vakreste filmen jeg har sett på lenge
jeg kunne godt tenke meg å gifte meg med diego luna også
det hadde vært helt greit for meg det





filmscript available from nieves

"you are not a fashion blogger, are you?"

"emm.. well. I blog about different things. sometimes fashion, sometimes music, sometimes movies or other things on my mind or inspiring to me."
"ok. well. good. cause if you were a fashion blogger that would be pathetic."

I see his point to some extent because there are a lot of blogs out there like : "I bought this black pantyhose today and then I bought icecream...blabla." ..yep, who the fuck cares, anyway? but there are also some really, really nice fashion blogs out there written by some very intelligent people making fashion and clothes a science and an art.

therefore; in my world, blogging about fashion is not as pathetic as it is in his world.
and I will now show you the latest material additions to my happiness.

I went for a day/shoppingtrip to stockholm. It was the first time I was in town when stores were open. I figured out that the only place I really "needed" to be was inside this house called the PUB-house, where I could find a lot of things of interest. me and my friend walked a little around town and went into a few shops (doing some touristy-things as well) but all in all mostly everything I bought was from this house. even more specifically the store called aplace on 3.floor. in the same floor there was also a very nice café which served me a delicious lambchopslunch (very cheap). it looked like it was the place to be during a friday for lunchtime, and a lot of stockholms most fashionable people were gathered here. fashionable businesspeople/designers talking on the phone, with their computers, and then walking amongst eachothers tables like they were all there on one big fashion-business meeting. people were inspecting eachother/analyzing eachothers styling and outfits. having been living in a quiet town up north in sweden since the middle of august, all of this made me extremely uncomfortable and I made all the wrong social codex mistakes. I felt clumpsy/self-conscious and under surveillance. at some point a whole fashion-table looked at me at the same time, and walking from the bathroom to our table suddenly felt problematic. at the same time as seeing all these wonderfully inspiring/welldressed people all at the same time made my heart jump for joy, it also made me realize that it is okey to be without this. to live in a quiet town where this is not everyday occurences. their tempos with their iphones and their computers and their eyes and their outfits felt foreign to me. both welcome and hungered after, but also far from my reality somehow. the obsession of being important. perhaps I cant explain it any better than this.

the fashion world is both intriguing and repulsive
and I think this love/hate relationship that I have to it is what makes me so curious.

enough small talk
here is what I bought
an ann-sofie back cardigan that twists nicely when on

a fifth avenue shoe repair dress that I think will look nice and be very comfortable during summer

an our legacy t-shirt that somewhat resembles my favourite acne t-shirt that has gone missing

an our legacy short sweater with an interesting back


two second hand t-shirts with animals on them that I liked

this one has paintstains making it extra trashy

a bodysock from american apparel

and some basics: bikini, body, fingercutoff vanter, headband & some underwear

------
regretting not having bought this (which were the reason for buying all the american apparel band/bra's):
a fifth avenue shoe repair dress that had a lot of fabric and draping

a nakkna tanktop (that luckily can be bought in their webshop)

aand, this jacket right here.

and while I am at it, this is a very nice webshop: trés bien shop

Ingmar Bergman on art: The Snakeskin

In exactly 12 hours I am handing in my exam in filmhistory. It consists of 5 pages of italian neorealism, 5 pages of the french new wave (including an analysis of Les 400 Coups) and 5 pages of Ingmar Bergman with an in-depth focus on Persona.

In relation to this I have been reading a lot. I have also watched a lot of movies. And I want to say the following about Ingmar Bergman: Sometimes I like him, sometimes I dont. Sometimes I find him utterly pretentious (and negative), but then again, the pretentiousness might be justified (if that is ever possible for pretentiousness). I find myself ambivalent towards him and unable to take a stand. Either I adore him, or I do not adore him.

He wrote this article The Snakeskin that was to be read out loud in Amsterdam in 1965, as he was to receive an award (the Erasmus Award), but couldnt be there himself as he was lying in bed very sick. (Most likely he got sick because he hit the wall, and had somewhat of an artistical crisis). Out of this sickness this article came and also the manuscript/book that were later to become the film Persona. I want to share with me his article, because I found parts of it utterly well put. Even though I am not sure that I agree with the notion of art not having any healing or therapeutic function, and that the artist is a self-absorbed but curious explorer of the world within his reach. Or perhaps that's exactly how it is. I am not sure. I have highlighted the part I loved the most. With no further introduction I will now copy and paste. Enjoy.

"Artistic creativity has always manifested itself in me as a sort of hunger. I have observed this need in myself with some gratification, but I have never in all my conscious life asked why this hunger should arise and demand to be satisfied. In the last few years, as it has begun to ease off, and been transformed into something else, I have begun to feel it important to try to establish the reason for my 'artistic activity'.

[...]

It was fairly obvious that the cinema should be my chosen means of expression. I made myself understood in a language that by-passed words, which I lacked; music, which I have never mastered; and painting, which left me unmoved. Suddenly, I had the possibility of corresponding with the world around me in a language that is literally spoken from soul to soul, in terms that avoid control by the intellect in a manner almost voluptuous.

I threw myself into my medium with all the dammed-up hunger of my childhood and for twenty years, in a sort of rage, I have communicated dreams, sensual experiences, fantasies, outbursts of madness, neuroses, the convulsions of faith, and downright lies. My hunger has been continuously renewed, money, fame and success have been the astonishing, but basically unimportant, consequences of my advance. By this, I do not wish to discount whatever I may have achieved. I believe it has had, and perhaps still has, its importance. What is so comforting to me is that I can see what has passed in a new and less romantic light. Art as self-satisfaction can have its importance – particularly to the artist himself.

Today the situation is less complicated, less interesting, and above all less glamorous.

Now, to be completely honest, I regard art (and not only the art of the cinema) as lacking importance.

Literature, painting, music, the cinema, the theatre beget and give birth to themselves. New mutations and combinations emerge and are destroyed; seen fro the outside, the movement possesses a nervous vitality – the magnificent zeal of artists to project, for themselves and an increasingly distracted public, pictures of a world that no longer asks what they think or believe. On a few preserves artists are punished, artists regarded as dangerous and worth stifling or steering. By and large, however, art is free, shameless, irresponsible and, as I said, the movement is intense, almost feverish; it resembles, it seems to me, a snakeskin full of ants. The snake itself is long since dead, eaten out from within, deprived of its poison; but the skin moves, filled with busy life.

If I now observe that I happen to be one of these ants, then I must ask myself whether there is any reason to pursue the activity further. The answer is yes. Even though I regard the theatre as an old and well-beloved courtesan who has seen better days. Even though I, and many with me, find Westerns more stimulating than Antonioni or Bergman. Even though the new music gives us feelings of suffocation, from the mathematical thinning out of the air; even though painting and sculpture have been sterilized and waste away in paralysing freedom. Even though literature has been transformed into a mere cairn of words, with no message and no danger.

There are poets who never write, because they shape their lives as poems; actors who never perform, but who act out their lives as high drama. There are painters who never paint, because they close their eyes and conjure up the most superb works of art on the back of their eye-lids. There are film-makers who live their films and would never abuse their gift by materializing them in reality.

In the same way, I believe that people today can reject the theatre, since they live in the midst of a drama which is constantly exploding in local tragedy. They need no music, since their hearing is bombarded every minute by great hurricanes of sound, in which the pain barrier is both reached and surpassed. They need no poetry, since the new world philosophy has transformed them into creatures of function, bound to interesting – but poetically unusable – problems of metabolism.

Man (as I experience myself and the world around me) has set himself free, fearfully, breathtakingly free. Religion and art are kept alive for sentimental reasons, as a conventional courtesy to the past, or in benevolent concern for the increasingly nervous citizens of leisure.

I am still declaring my subjective view. I hope and am convinced that others have a more balanced and allegedly objective view. If now I take all these unfortunate factors into consideration and assert that in spite of everything I wish to continue making art, it is for one very simple reason. (I will disregard any purely material considerations.)

This reason is curiosity. An unbounded, never satisfied, continuously renewed, unbearable curiosity, which drives me forward, never leaves me in peace, and completely replaces my hunger for fellowship.

I feel like a prisoner who has served a long sentence and suddenly tumbled out into the booming, howling, snorting world outside. I am seized by an intractable curiosity. I note, I observe, I have my eyes with me, everything is unreal, fantastic, frightening, or ridiculous. I capture a flying particle of dust, perhaps it's a film – and of what importance will that be: none whatsoever, but I myself find it interesting, so it's a film. I revolve with objects I have captured for myself and am cheerfully or melancholically occupied. I elbow my way in with the other ants, we do a colossal job. The snakeskin moves.

This and this only is my truth. I don't ask that it should be true for anyone else and, as comfort for eternity, it is naturally on the slim side. As a basis for artistic activity during the next few years it is entirely adequate, at least for me.

To be an artist for one's own sake is not always very agreeable. But it has one outstanding advantage: the artist is on an equal footing with every other creature who also exists solely for his own sake. Taken together, we are probably a fairly large brotherhood who exist in this way in selfish fellowship on the warm, dirty earth, under a cold and empty sky."

"the internet should be made out of paper"

-connor o'brian

I completely agree.

tonight is a strange night.
I have decided to stay indoors even though Mattias Alkberg is playing with a new band in town, and some of my friends are there.
I feel torn between the urge to go out vs the urge to stay inside. there is a lot of snow at the moment and it is too slippery to bike. walking is cold, and also slippery, but nice. however, my epic trip out last night makes the decision an easy one, mostly because I cant go out and redo yesterday anyway.

I wish my neighbours downstairs that are having a party would have a worse taste in music. it is a strange wish, but it makes me feel even more alone when they play good song after good song, which signifies that they might be good people. I dream about going downstairs to be the boring complaining neighbour, and they'll be all like. hey, wait a minute, you should come in and join the party in stead. I think I would have very much enjoyed that. it would have been a scary thrill. but in stead of being both the boring, complaining neighbour, or the really cool partyneighbour, I choose to be the silent neighbour, humming along to the songs I can hum along to safely a paperthin floor away.

I like the internet. but at times it can make me upset/angry/stressed. I have like 20 mails I should answer. perhaps even more. they are all important to answer, because some people might think that I dont want to answer, which is never ever the case. some might even get offended when they see that I have been online (i.e. statuschangements on facebook and stuff). it makes me feel even more stressed about the mails and all the answering. the internet should be fun. but sometimes I get such a suffocated feeling. information overload drains my energy. I literally get stressed because of all the cool things that are out there, and all the cool things yet to be created, and discovered. and also the stressfulness on not knowing where to go and what to do. there is nothing more I wish for than going back to cph. and yet at the same time, staying here learning more about theatre and film also intrigues me. yesterday, an artist who is also a student in my class started asking me why I was here. why I didnt attend some artschool somewhere, which he said he would definitely see me as fit for. I replied I had no idea about which one to choose, or what to do there. I shouldnt blame the internet, and I am not going to. but there is constantly something I long for doing. I have a very short span of attention and I want to do it all. I want to act, make movies, write, take pictures, become a psychologist, do this, do that. start my own company. live here, live there. sometimes people say that its good its that way and not the other. that I want to do too little. but honestly. the things I want more than anything, anything right now is this:

-knowing what to do
-and where, so I can get/build a home with my furniture and my things, and my books, and my everything
-pursue what I have decided when it comes to making a living and do it well.