MeMag - Me Magazine

Everybody complains about crime and layoffs and globalization. How the world is becoming more cold and chaotic every day. But nobody speaks of the real problem; the elderly. I mean… these people are everywhere. You can’t go to the market and buy a nice frozen dinner and a sixpack without having to wait in line for half an hour because some old git has decided to pay for his or her cat-food in small coins, individually wrapped in pieces of cellophane or newspaper-paper. And tell the cashier everything about their dead spouses and failing health.

They know they waste everybody’s time. They just don’t care. People generally become more conservative and more selfish the older they get. So by the time they reach 80, most people are ready to introduce public executions and to bring back slavery. Opinions they are never afraid to voice. Loudly.

Today I had to take the bus to visit my parents to sort out their weekly computer problems. This bus route (#61s in Oslo) has been completely taken over by gangs of elderly people. They push their way in and take up at least two seats each. Then they pester the driver into stopping at least fifty times between the stops because they cannot walk, even though this doesn’t stop them from spending the entire day on their feet, blocking the way for normal people everywhere.

Todays subject of conversation on the bus was a fire in one of the apartments in one of the buildings near where they live. They didn’t know who lived there and what had happened to them. Still, a conclusion was quickly reached. -It had to be black people. Those people just don’t care. What a brilliant piece of deduction! Obviously black people gladly burn their own home down just for the hell of it. I can see them now, shrugging their shoulders… “Heeey…. you burned your home down”… “so?”. We all know what they are like, don’t we? Everyone on the bus nodded in agreement. The next topic, God help me, was the war in Iraq. The old bag next to me couldn’t comprehend why the newspapers wrote about that. “Sixty people killed in Iraq”, she said. “Why do they waste time writing about that? I was locked out of my apartment for three hours the other day”.

As usual I evacuated the bus a couple of stops early. I can’t stand it on that bus. They all stare at me like I am some sort of juvenile delinquent Beelzebub with huge horns and red smoke piping out of my ears. Because I’m under 65. To them everyone older than 14 (who isn’t part of the royal family) is scum. Except for other old people. I’ve had to watch my own father change after he retired. All these brilliant ideas suddenly appearing in his head. He caught a cold once and was convinced that someone had traveled all the way from Africa to sit next to him on the subway train and give him that cold. On purpose. If I try to take him out for a coffee, he will do things like burping improbably loud, or bursting out things like “dear God… look at that fat cow sitting on that table! She’s huuuuge! Look how ugly she is!” He doesn’t care. He is old.

Now he doesn’t go out anymore. He just sits and moans about his health. No doctors can find anything wrong with him. Of course… his regular doctor isn’t even a proper one. He is from Pakistan. My father refuses to understand a word he says even though he speaks fluidly. So he makes his own cocktails of pills. And ends up feeling even worse. He will get absolutely furious if anyone tries to have a conversation that isn’t about his health. If something else is discussed, he will just interrupt it right away. Today my mother and I ignored his complaints for a short while. She wanted to know how I was doing. His solution to this was to pretend to throw up.

Still everyone is always going on about how important it is to respect the elderly. And who have taught them this? That’s right: The elderly. It’s all a scam. They do nothing to deserve anyone’s respect. I can’t think of a more useless arrogant group of people. And they are allowed to vote? And even in many cases drive? It’s shocking. Anyone with an ounce of self-respect would kill themselves at 75. But of course they don’t. They demand that everyone else take care of them instead. We seriously need to get rid of these people. Put them in institutions, I say! It’s not like they know where they are half the time anyway. Confiscate their money and give it to young people so they can have some fun. Hide them away in homes. Cheap, senile incontinent bastards!

Much of the last couple of weeks work ammounts to this single image. It was a wonderfully unreal scene, but I didn’t feel it came across fully in the photograph. So I have been going back on those days it hasn’t rained. Six times I went back after shooting this original version, but each time something was in the way. Parked cars mainly. One time my camera didn’t work at all and I had to take the bus back without having the chance to shoot anything. Half an hours ride each way. I have now given up. Or at least I think I have. This is probably as good as it gets. So be it.

I have also been busy making web pages for various people lately. Hence the lack of postings. Doing three different web design projects at once now. And a flyer and a logo. After this is done, I have three more web pages lined up. Then another CD cover, which I’m looking forward to a lot more than the web work. All in all, it is good to have something to do.

The background here is the mysterious secret area with the sign saying that photography is strictly prohibited. Everything is prohibited in The Forbidden Zone.

The Internet Archive now offers Alfred Hitchcock’s 1934 masterpiece The Man Who Knew Too Much as a free download.

Hitch remade this movie in 1956 when he was at the top of his fame and had every resource at Universal Studios available to him. But while he himself considered the remake superior to the original, it is in my opinion almost unwatchable due to the inclusion and seemingly constant repetition of Doris Day’s hit song Que Sera, Sera.

The original however, is uncontaminated by this unbelievably annoying piece of audio cheese. It is also a great example of Hitchcocks influences from German expressionism, and of what miracles that man could perform with a small budget and a mediocre script. It also has Peter Lorre, which adds about ten points to any ’30s evil villain-thriller. Fetch.

A photo left over from earlier this summer. This is the same spot as this, -an artifical laguna framed in lovely concrete.

If I could be somebody else I would be Saul Bass. Well… maybe not now because he’s dead, but I would have loved to have his talent for movie title design. That is something I have always wanted to work with. I often drag his name out in movie discussions, but I have yet to meet anyone (here in Norway) who has ever heard of him. So I usually go on to mentioning some of the films he did the titles for, like The Man With The Golden Arm, where he has a simple theme of white lines introduce a movie about a junkie. Genius. But no one has seen any of these films either, because like I said before, in Norway people only watch movies with Steven Segal.

Here at least, are the best titles by Saul Bass as clickable frame-by-frame animations. There is also an official homepage, with movie clips of some of the titles. For those who can get it to work. I couldn’t.

Titles by PCL LinkDump

For someone who blames sports/competition/elitism for most of the childhood traumas in his life, I sure take a lot of photos of soccer fields and players. I think I’m probably trying to resolve something. But I’m not sure what. In any case it’s probably better than screaming angry hateful rants whenever a newspaper accidentally flips open on the sports section.

On my way home I missed my bus and had to walk the short distance to the subway station instead. While waiting for the subway home, I grabbed these two shots of the building outside the station. I have always wanted to photograph an old cozy wooden house reflected in a modern glass building. So whenever I pass a reflective building-surface, I turn my head, looking for my house. This of course, is just one modern glass building reflected in another, so there isn’t any point to it. No great statement about skyscrapers smothering any trace of humanity. But shiny things are pretty.

This by the way, is something you should never do. There is nothing more trite and amateurish than a photo looking up towards a tall building. If you shoot photos like this, I will come and smack your fingers. But like I said… shiny things are pretty. These buildings are just standing there looking impressive. And the subway in Oslo is always late.

I was taking a long walk to a closed down industrial complex. When I got there it turned out that it wasn’t closed down at all. There was a gate and several threatening signs telling people what horrible fate they had in store for anyone who dared to approach with a camera. I decided to walk around the entire area in order to have some variation in scenery on my way back.

After more walking… a lot of walking… without seeing anything or anyone interesting I came upon a small business for floorboard repair. There was music coming from inside. Outside there were two young women sitting, drinking beer. Since I had walked for a long time without shooting anything, I did something I never really do; I spoke to them. Strangers. Women. Me. I don’t know what came over me.

So I stood there for a long time talking to them while I waited for the streetlights to come on in the background. One of the women offered me beer. I politely declined. So she asked me if I was one of those christians who didn’t drink. I said no. Five times she asked me if I wanted a beer and each time she followed it up with the christian question. She was a tv-journalist she said.

She also told me that some guys were recording a CD inside the flooring-business locale. The girls were waiting for them to lay down the last two tracks so they could go somewhere more interesting and drink even more. They had been waiting for a long time.

I thought about how people like Robert Johnson had made recordings at the back of a hardware store in the ’30s and how things have now come full circle with affordable portable recording equipment. I also wondered why there are no women waiting patiently for hours outside my darkroom. What do these rock musicians have that I don’t?

I shot a few different shots. After I had been there for quite a while, they finally stared to look worried and asked if I was some sort of pervert stalker. I said yes. Then I said goodbye and started on my long walk home.

Can’t decide which one of these shots to use. Have narrowed it down to these three. In a way they show a nice progression when seen together. Input welcome.

This is a traffic island. Those things always fascinate me. But they are very difficult to approach. And if you finally manage to get yourself ashore on one of them, you are stranded and cannot get back. And once you are there you can’t fit anything into frame anyway because you are too close to all the fake planted trees and flowers. So for now it’s a view from across the highway. I may go back to look for a better angle.

This is really a very idyllic residential area with lovely red apartment blocks. Very beautiful in the orange setting sunlight. The whole area is also blessed with old electrical masts, -the kind that look like those oil well towers that are scattered everywhere in movies about the depression.
When I looked through my camera it looked more like a concentration camp than a residential area. But it was nice really.

I was trying to walk away from the buildings to see if I could get a better shot of the power masts when I noticed a big angry yellow sign that said “All photography strictly prohibited”. It then cited a law dated July 14th 1950. I looked around nervously. Clearly I had once again stepped into The Forbidden Zone.

At 10pm, as I was heading home, different groups of kids were trekking across the bridge to the other side of the highway where there are several small sporting arenas. While I had been on the one side of the bridge, the other had filled up with people playing all kids of sports. In the dark. Badmington on the sidewalk. Things like that. Very strange.

I finally uploaded my new photography portfolio or gallery or whatever you may call it, almost a year after I made it. It has been sitting on my hard drive waiting. During this year I have once again applied for grants and for the possibility to have an exhibition sponsored. I didn’t want to put the new photos up in case I were to have a debut exhibition. Would be a bit silly then to have had everything online months earlier. But… after a year, nothing has happened. So I might as well put the portfolio online while it has some shelf life left in it.

This new batch of photos is more representative to what I do these days, as opposed to street photography which was the main focus of the old portfolio. The new one replaces the old one, at least for the time being.

I hope someone will tell me about bugs they find this time. The usual arrangement is for people to someday say “oh… and by the way… that website you put up three years ago… it never did work”. It would be very helpful to learn of these things a little sooner.

Welcome to The Forbidden Zone where all photography is strictly prohibited. Why? Because we say so! Who are we, you ask? We are the guardians of The Forbidden Zone. Our corporation has made it’s own uniforms, hence we have the right to police any law. Our powers are endless, as are our numbers. Before you know it, you may have stepped into The Forbidden Zone and you are subject to our authority. The Forbidden Zone is not marked on any map. It stretches wherever we say it does. Our creed? All cameras must be eradicated! They are instruments of terrorism and civil disobedience. Obey us! Or face our anabolic wrath…

This photo is a rare historic glimpse into what The Forbidden Zone may have looked like centuries ago. Now relocated to The Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, this is a perfect example of how The Forbidden Zone sometimes works; You pay $15 to get in, carrying a clearly visible camera slung over your shoulder. Every single person in front of you and behind you have a camera. There are no signs saying that photography is not allowed. Inside, everyone is photographing everything. You only shoot one frame. After an hour, having first talked to a nice employee who has offered to let you in behind one of the little fences, offered to rearrange historical museum pieces so that you will get a better shot and even offered to pose. -Only then are you accosted by a Forbidden Zone employee who wants to know what the hell you think you are doing, carrying a camera over your shoulder as you approach the ice cream bar.

Forbidden Zone representative: Young traditionally costumed woman with enormous panicky eyes at the sight of you and your camera.

Here is a shot I uploaded to the server a while back, but never posted because I thought it was a bit boring. The reason for the great empty space in front of the chairs, is that I was standing there myself in the three exposures prior to this one. But since I can’t stand to look at any photo of myself where I actually look like me, I’m left with this version which seems to lack something. I don’t know… maybe the empty space in front makes it interesting. The light is good anyway.

Here is something you don’t see every day… a filmmaker who makes an entire feature film of his available for download. And it’s well worth watching. Shot in black & white in New York City, it pulsates to a quiet reggae dub beat, which isn’t what most filmmakers would have thought up. With an almost constant narration through much of it, and everyday scenes viewed from surveillance camera angles, this is the kind of film that many people are likely to either love or hate. Ok, so that love and hate thing could probably be said about nearly all movies. It was a dumb thing to say. What I mean is… people are likely to find it either pretentious or fresh, depending on how many independent films they have seen and their own level of cynicism.

It is slightly reminicent of the opening montage of Manhattan, but without the iconic, timeless Gershwin mood. It is sort of indiely similar to Family Viewing, but not quite as clearly narrated. It is as inaccessible as a Fellini film, but frankly not as brilliant. It does have however, a very pleasant low key groove of unspoken drama. The conflicts are inside the characters and we can only covertly watch from across the room and wonder what they are thinking. The question is if these images are strong enough to stick with us until we have had time to make up our minds.

In either case I suggest you download it, if you have the bandwidth, and watch it. It is worth 98 minutes of most peoples lives. (Actually, anything is worth 98 minutes of mine). It is also a film that may be unlikely to appear in the shelves of your local video store. At least if you live in Norway, where we only watch Steven Segal-movies. (It’s in our constitution right below the paragraph about drinking only beer). Go on, give a modern movie in black & white a chance. Nobody needs to know.

Discovered through Errata

Each time there is some sort of camera equipment I want to try out to expand my visual vocabulary, it proves completely impossible to find. If I do come across something for sale, it always costs about the same used and worn out as it does new. Why? Because a ten year old Leica or Rollei is rare? Because they only ever made ten copies and they were all hand-coated in gold by naked cuban virgins? No. It’s because all these middle-aged rich assholes feel they need to have twenty copies of every camera ever made on their shelf so that they can show them off to other middle-aged assholes as trophies. They never use them because they have no talent for anything except to deprive the market for every piece of decent second-hand tool in existance. If it wasn’t for these people, young unestablished creative people could pick up old but fully functional equipment and make wonderful things with it. But no. A few people need to own it all and push all prices up. Scum. This really pisses me off. I mean… What if you had to pay $3000 for a screwdriver because I owned them all? Huh? Would that seem reasonable to you?