MeMag - Me Magazine

Mount Everest Car Wash, close to my apartment building. I shot the second one just to finish the roll of film so that I could develop it as soon as I got home.

Usually when I finish a roll, I put in another one immediately. I shouldn’t say usually… I always do this. It is one of my strictest habits. This time I didn’t. I was tired and wanted to do it at home. Just around the corner. While walking away I thought to myself that this is the kind of thing you usually end up regretting later. Skipping something just this once. Giving fate the finger. I rounded the corner.

A couple of nights earlier I had been standing outside my building looking up and down the street. I needed to finish a roll then too. To the one side there was a great looking moving van, but it was an impossible angle. The other way was the empty street. Great light. Nice perspective. But boring. There should have been something in the foreground.

Now… when rounding the corner, carrying the perfectly empty camera, there was another moving van standing in the foreground of the nice but dull scene from a few nights before. It was the exact same angle as before, except now it looked great. There was a guy standing in the open back of the van, silhouetted against the dim lights inside. The entire street scene was lit like Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. Light foreground against dark background… dark foreground against light background. And still serene. It was perfect!

I made the shot on the second attempt, just as the guy was standing still for a while. Two seconds. Perfect. He gave me a blank stare, got in the front of the van and drove off.

And then… only then did it occur to me that there was no film in the camera. Somehow, that knowledge had disappeared during those few steps rounding the corner.

This now makes it 3 out of the last 6 times I have been shooting where I have forgotten that there is no film in the camera. Is this a new trend then? I mean… I know I have memory problems. Things disappear like that every day. But I really thought I was getting better. At least I have Mount Everest. For keeps. In a few months they will be tearing the building down.

Dr. Ståle Fredriksen, MD and Research Fellow at The University of Oslo, who earlier this year earned his doctorate for the thesis Bad luck and the tragedy of modern medicine, (in short saying that bad luck should be an accepted partial cause of accidents and illnesses, and that even lifestyle diseases are to some degree the result of factors beyond our control) has now put forth the idea that school homework violates children’s human rights.

I agree. The maximum work week (without overtime and extra pay) in Norway is set to 37.5 hrs. And yet children and teenagers are expected to stay in school for up to 45 hrs. a week and in addition spend an hour or two each evening, the majority of their spare time, doing homework.

Article 24 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights state that “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay”. And in truth, no adult (outside of Japan) would accept it if the boss demanded that he took his work home every single day. Yet this is demanded of our young for no apparent reason except “because”.

Dr. Fredriksen claims that research show that students are getting little actual benefit from their homework. This is simply because you need to be alert and motivated in order to learn efficiently, and no one is at their mental best late in the evening at the end of a long work day. (The article however, doesn’t offer any reference to this research. I wish it did).

The tradition of homework is a remnant of the past. The notion of full days in school five days a week is relatively recent in our culture. Fifty years ago the majority of kids in Norway only went to school every other day. And yet the same workload of homework is taken for granted today. Not only that, -children are usually blamed by their parents for not having gotten their homework out of the way the minute they came home, as if they themselves would have gone on working without a break after a work day of that length.

Parliamentary Secretary Helge Ole Bergesen in the ministry of education and research has stated that he does not agree.

Covered in the following Norwegian newspaper article. No english versions of this seem to have been published online so far, but you can read more about Bad luck and the tragedy of modern medicine here.
Dr. Fredriksen will answer posted questions on this subject on Tuesday October 4th at 12:00 local time.

The Internet Archive now offers the complete film The Outlaw as a free download.

Howard Hughes produced and directed this wonderful western turkey as a vehicle for his 19 year old mistress, Jane Russell. The exentric multi-millionair even had a team of aircraft engineers working on the problem of how to make certain parts of the young starlet’s anatomy display perfectly on screen, thus spawning the invention of the push-up bra.

After firing (brilliant) director Howard Hawks, Hughes decided to direct himself, which probably helped make this movie strange and boring, instead of just boring. He also did his best to whip up a lot of scandalous publicity about the films shocking sexuality. This ensured that the film was held back for years by censors, thereby turning a pretty bad movie into a cult classic. All in all there is only one good reason to see this movie, and that is Jane Russell. Err… Make that two reasons.

After that Sunday night lit by 3000 torches along the Alna river, I was thrilled to hear that there would be a second similar event along a different river the following Thursday.

This time I was intent on getting it right. I even went as far as to go location-scouting the night before, so that I could be at the best spot during the short transition between evening and night. I read maps and did web searches. The more I prepared the more I became certain that it would be a failure due to over-preparation. Which of course it was.

I wanted to be two places at once and tried to rush quickly from one stretch of the river to the other. On the way I passed several wonderful views, but I didn’t have time to wait around for each scene to clear up. There were people everywhere, all of them in my way. Each time I looked through the camera trying to find the best angle, there was an ass in my frame. Several of them wanted to talk to me. I was not in the mood. The more concentrated you look in your work, the more people feel that it’s a good idea that they interrupt you so that they can look through your camera and tell you all about their grandfather’s uncle who had a strange old camera too.

Usually I enjoy this sort of banter, even though the disturbance often costs me the photo. But not this day. I became angrier and angrier. A strange woman with a hugle poodle came over and said “We just have to stand here and watch you because you look so creepy/dangerous”. Wtf? I told her that I was. She went away. As did the light. I hurried past countless beautifully lit sceneries. All of them had something wrong with them in terms of composition, background light or people walking about like cattle. I wanted the perfect photo, but everything was a mere near-perfect.

Finally I lifted my arm to smash my camera onto the asphalt. I just managed to stop myself. Again. My camera has survived dozens of near-deaths. I walked home, having only gotten a few shots that were hopelessly inadequate. And over-exposed too. Looks like I need a fresh battery again.

This Mexican site has some scans of early as well as more recent Santo comics. El Santo is our (read: my) patron saint here at MeMag and he has been briefly mentioned before. More than once, actually.

Some of these comics are photonovels that showcase a wonderful blend of photo-collage and painting. Very creatively done. The scans on this site are of a quality that do the original low budget comics justice. There are also photos of El Santo unmasked and other rarities. Spanish only.

If my Spanish serves me right, and it usually doesn’t, the speach-bubble in this pane says “It is the body of the unfortunate (f) friend of mine who in life went by the name of Elena.” Dramatic stuff indeed.

Discovered through Boing Boing

I was standing on a mound, trying to see if there would be any point shooting this particular soccer field, when the usual gang of kids surrounded me. As always, they asked me 900 questions, each new one interrupting the one I was answering on the first or second word.

“Take a picture of Omar!” one of them suddenly said. Everyone went wild. “Yes! Omar! You have to take a picture of Omar!”

“What is so special about Omar?”, I asked. “He is the best!”, they said. I assumed they meant soccer. I suddenly didn’t feel like photographing any local heroes. I’m insecure around people who are worshipped by everyone. Even if they are just kids. “I’m busy”, I lied. “Sorry, maybe some other time”. It was the best I could come up with.

They ignored me and fetched Omar. “This guy is from the papers”, they explained to him. “He has come here to photograph you!”

Omar walked towards me like he had all the time in the world. All the other kids were buzzing frantically around him. “Is this true?”, he asked me calmly. “No”, I sad. I explained that I wasn’t from any paper and that I was only there as a hobby. Omar sat down and suddenly there was a picture there. I changed my mind and asked if he would object to being photographed even if he wouldn’t be in the papers. I think I phrased it really retardedly like “I need something in the foreground and it may as well be you”. I was nervous. He said he didn’t care.

He sat perfectly still like this for a long time, looking over his kingdom. I shot a couple of varying photos as the background changed. Afterwards I stood watching the field. There were teams doing bizarre training exercises. After a while Omar turned around and asked politely if it was ok that he left. It was getting cold. I didn’t know that he was posing. All the time I had thought that he didn’t care and that he was just watching the field. And there I was freezing to death in my jacket, shirt, t-shirt and two sweaters. I felt bad.

When I came across this guy, it was really too dark to shoot anything. I tried anyway. After this shot, I talked to him for a while and had him pose for a few portraits. I figured that I could double-expose in some extra light in the background. I’m sure it would have turned out well, if it hadn’t been for the fact that there was no film left in the camera. With my camera type, it’s possible to go on shooting even though the film runs out. You have to pay attention to the numbers on the film counter. But it was too dark to read them. I should have kept count in my mind.

Today I awoke in a state of panic, knowing that a fate worse than death awaited me… It was almost too horrible to think about: I knew that today I had to assemble a piece of Ikea furniture for my mother. The horror… The horror…

The mission target was Vättern, -a small bathroom cupboard named after a lövely lake in Sweden. It was clear from the beginning that this was a doomed project. Or rather… it was clear a lot sooner than the beginning that this was a doomed project. -One has been subjected to Swedish furniture earler in life. One bears the emotional scars.

The first part of the mission had already been accomplished by my mother, so I didn’t have to endure the hours she had spent driving back and forth between various storage outlets in order to get all the required parts. My job seemed simple by comparison, -follow the instructions and assemble accordingly.

Enyone who has ever attempted to decode Ikea blueprints are already sniggering. It cannot be done. Even the little cartoon men in the 5 different and conflicting instruction booklets seem to know this. Like me they seem unable to figure anything out. It’s written all over their faces.

The instructions start off with an omnious warning that “the assembly should be carried out by a qualified person, due to the fact that wrong assembly can lead to that the furniture /object topples or falls resulting in personal injury or damage”.

Good God. Not only do I feel hopelessly underqualified to put together a puzzle that would probably leave all the combined engineers at Nasa in tears. But the result may even be that this tiny two-foot cupboard topples over and crushes me to death. It’s all just more responsibility and danger than one neurotic can handle.

Nevertheless… since danger is my middle name, I dive into the work with stoic patience. I shall not let this insane project break me. My mother is handing me various screwdrivers like a trained surgeon’s nurse, perfectly anticipating every requirement. We joke about screws that don’t fit the readymade screwholes and the impossible stupidity of the instructions. We are having a good time. A few hours later a small rickety cupboard is produced from the huge stack of flat packages. It looks odd. Very odd. But as long as it has a wall to lean into, it stands proudly and has room for at least 3 towels and a bar of soap. Who could ask for more?

Left: the parts left over when finished. Right: The square legs of the diagram compared to the round aluminium stilts in the package.

The tools needed for the job.

There are 7 rivers running through Oslo, most of which are now forced underground by industrialisation. I think my building is right on top of one of them. Someone said so. But there is no way to tell for sure.

The Alna is one of the 2 biggest surviving rivers, allthough it’s more like a small stream in many places. There is a society for it’s preservation, and each year they have a march or a walk along the river. The path along the banks of the Alna goes underneath highway ramps, subway bridges and through factory parking lots. For this occasion the route is lined with 3000 torches. Miles and miles of them. In many places there are pockets of untouched forest, giving an indication of what the city used to be like before they decided to tear everything down in order to make it nice and modern.

I only walked a small part of the distance. First of all it seemed hopelessly complicated to find the lake where the walk started. The event didn’t seem to be announced anywhere except on their unworking web page. Also I’m lazy. So I cheated and took a streetcar to the last part of the river. Which was good from a photography viewpoint. It got dark so quickly anyway, that I only had the time to cover a very small area.

The first exposure was about 1/4th of a second. The cluster of light in the background is the bridge in image 2. The 3rd is standing on the bridge looking down the river. This was just over 2 seconds. You can just make out my fingers that I was holding over the bottom part of the lens for most of the exposure, because the light from the torch right in front of me was so strong compared to the background light. Probably should have moved my fingers a little. I think the last shot was around 12 seconds of exposure. So the light was disappearing fast.

This article in the Daily Mail is an amusing read. As always when a foreign newspaper, magazine or tv program says anything slightly critical about Norway, it causes great headlines in our local newspapers. Which is where I found this article as well.

While hitting the nail on the head in several paragraphs, they did get some of the facts wrong. What puzzles me the most about this piece, is that it refers to Norway as being “the best place in the world to live” in terms of health and personal economy, referring to a United Nations survey ranking us first among 177 countries for the fifth year running. This mirrors what people here love to describe their country as; “The wealthiest country in the world”.

This of course, is just propaganda. We have been told so many times that we are rich that most of us accept it without even thinking about it. While in fact, hardly anyone I know can afford a hot meal every day of the month. This article (which is sadly now a pay-for-read item) in The New York Times reaches a different conclusion in regards to our economy. It refers to a different statistic which says that we have one of the lowest living standards in Europe.

Another interesting “fact” in the Daily Mail article is that we apparently have the worlds lowest unemployment at 3.7%. This is just wrong. I might not have the most industrious group of friends, but since only a couple of people I know have regular (low paying) jobs, this cannot be right. The government have designed fool-proof schemes intended to hide the true numbers. The process of registring and maintaining status as unemplyed is so complicated and faulty here that most people give up. Their status then automatically reverts back to one of employment after a few weeks.

The high unemployment also leads to academic over-education within useless fields. People who have no work often enrolls in various university courses because this entitles them to a student loan. They end up with a few trophy degrees but as a result, the labor market is flooded with people with impressive educations and huge personal debt. You more or less need a university degree now adays to get a job delivering pizza.

There is a similar government scheem regarding religion. Very few Norwegians attend church at all, except for the occasional funeral. And hardly anyone declare themselves openly as christians. Yet when you are born you are automatically entered into the church and few people bother to take the steps to cancel their memberships. Everyone is a registered church member. Yet no one believes in anything. It is normal. And it looks great in the statistics. In reality we are a bunch of heathens.

The truth is that while Norway has great national wealth due to it’s oil resources, the money just don’t belong to the people. We aren’t getting any of it. And we never will. Meanwhile, our mythical fortunes seems to justify absurdly high taxes on just about anything. Saving money is impossible. The only way young people can get out of their debt these days, is to inherit their parents.

“Norway has much going for it and the Norwegians are, on the whole, beautiful, prosperous and healthy. Millions of people would love to have what they have.

But I’ve seen more joy and laughter in desperately impoverished villages in Africa than I did in Oslo.”

You really feel your age whenever you look around and see something that everyone takes for granted, and it looks odd to you because it didn’t use to be like that when you grew up. Like cell phones. That is science fiction to me. I don’t have one and I don’t know how they work. What is so interesting about that little display that has everyone walking around while staring down at it? I don’t get it.

Another thing is female soccer. I mean… hetrosexual girls who like soccer? That is like men who do needlepoint. It’s just wrong somehow. And slightly creepy.

When I was young, dinosaurs ruled the earth and with the exeption of that one boyish redheaded brat-girl in my class, only boys played soccer. The best players were favored by teachers and everyone else. They were treated as heroes. Others, who may have thought that continuing to run after a ball past the age of nine while shouting and grunting monosyllables at each other seemed silly, were less popular. And the girls… they stood by watching most of the time. Soon the prettiest of them would become trophies to the most popular boys.

Such is the way of natural selection: Evolution favors small brains and large muscle mass. Or so it has been up until now. Because when you walk through a park these days, many of the soccer playing kids you are likely to see are girls.

It is every society’s highest goal to change everything that has a natural flow in order to make it politically correct. Feminism was already the dominent political force in Norway when I grew up. Girls had to take wood shop and boys had to knit. Mothers made sure that their daughters didn’t learn how to cook anything, so that she would grow up safe from slavery in a kitchen. But while the girls were required to play the same sports in school, they seemed to favor horses and homework in their spare time.

Now it seems that the scandinavian female has adapted and incorporated all these traditionally male traits into their natural behavior. Norwegian women are now scary muscular creatures with big tattoos. They drink like sailors too. And they play soccer in their spare time. This could lead to a diferent discussion altogether, of how scandinavian men more and more favor foreign women and of how the native women are outraged by this and call these men pigs. But that’s not the point of this conservative rant.

Here is the point finally: Girl sovver players… Why do they bother? It’s not like anyone cares about the game itself when watching a female soccer game. We look at the women. Our eyes follow the most beautiful players. Who cares who’s got the ball? Who notices if anyone scores or not? Nobody. Even women spectators check out which player is better looking or has the nicest hairdo or whatever. So female soccer will never work. Not unless they drastically change the uniforms. Spandex maybe. That would work for me.