The Lighthouse Keeper's cat

This is the last page of Tove Jansson’s Tales from the Moomin Valley as found in the Wellington City Central Library. The first stamp is 3 SEP 1977, the last one 28 APR 1983.

I issued it on 4 JAN 2012, I wish had a stamp like this, I think I’d use it… ^_^…

I was wondering if this is an ‘Urban Messages’; but I think it fits: Libraries are urban life-forms, with books as heartbeats and issue desks as roadblocks.

‘On-writing with Sally Adee’ made me laugh out loud two times today: first while jogging and the second time during breakfast, when I listened to it again taking some notes. The science journalist, and technology features editor at New Scientist, talkes about her writing practise, a way to ask dumb questions, and the need to throw away 4250 words to gain the 750 good ones.

The recording is part of ‘The Writing Studio – Podcast’*, published by Vanderbilt University, where you can find another interesting talk: ‘On-writing with Cecelia Tichi’.

*) with luck this link gets you to the podcast in iTunes. Vanderbilt University, and other publishers, could – and should – make it easier to share and embed their audio or video content on blogs and social media. Apple’s iTunes won’t do it for them … @#$%^&… #rant… ^_^…

Wikipedia’s protest against the planed SOPA legislation, and the Wikipedia blackout today, are not only dark omens of a future without both free sharing and free access to shared knowledge on a free medium. There is something more sinister hiding in its shadow.

I am not a fan of online piracy; however, living in a country that most copyright lawyers* proprietors don’t know exists, I share the pain caused by an industry that lost the ability to price, or distribute, their products to meet their customers expectations and needs. The SOPA and other world-wide anti-piracy legislation are not only ill-aimed, they are the last struggles of an era that is already gone. Kapitalism can feel the end, but it won’t give up without a fight.

We all know where this might lead: to an authoritarian administration of a – still – free medium, an administration that is centralized, unrestricted and requires complete obedience. If we choose to let this happen, the transition into the post-kapitalism era, even though it might not be stopped, might be slowed down; or turned into something nasty. It’s much harder to get rid of a totalitarian system, than to come up with new ideas for a different future, while we still live in an ‘open’ society; whatever the state of its ‘democracy’.

It is happening. Now. It’s our choice. Support Wikipedia**.

*) Sorry, the lawyers actually found us. In this country the media industry, in from of the US government, forces our government to persecute their citizens, before the said industry tries to make it legal for said citizens to buy their content.

**) Clay Shirky tells you 2 things you can do in his TED talk and explains all of it way better than me!

Crisis is all too familiar to me, there is this exhibition, this deadline, there are sleepless nights, oh-shit-oh-shit-I-just-can-not-do-this-f***-F*** etc… Getting older, you ask yourself, why does this happen every time. It’s just stupid. A waste of time. Could I please just get on with it! In the end all-is-well-that-ends-well. Some stuff goes on the wall, others stuff find its place in a bin.

So it is not surprising that this quote caught my attention, even hidden in a footnote, during my research on story telling and creative writing.

“This explains why hardly any productive work gets through without morbid crises of a neurotic nature.” 

I am reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell*; I often find myself more interested in the comprehensive footnotes and quotes, than in the actual text. You’ll find it in Part 1, Chapter 1, under the title ’2. Refusal of the Call’, where Campbell quotes Otto Rank** (1884 – 1939) from his book ‘Art and the Artist’, published in New York 1943.

To distinguish the ‘neurotic’ from the ‘productive’ artist Rank writes: ”…both are distinguished fundamentally from the average type, who accepts himself as he is, by their tendency to exercise their violation in reshaping themselves”. He states the neurotic type does “not get beyond the destructive preliminary work and is therefore unable to detach the whole creative process from his own person and [unable to] transfer it to an ideological abstraction. The productive artis also begins… with that re-creation of himself … [but] is in a position to shift the creative will-power from his own person to ideological representations of that person and thus render it objective.” Rank emphasises that even the productive artistic process is “in a measure limited … to within the individual himself… in its constructive, but also in its destructive aspects.” He ends with the quoto above, “This explains why hardly any productive work gets through without morbid crises of a neurotic nature.”

In short: The ‘artist’ is captured in the need to re-invent himself, or his surroundings. In a productive phase, he is able to shift this creative power from himself to his artwork. So the artistic process, if it does not begin in crisis, will go through crisis, or even end in a crisis (failure).

This might explain a lot ^_^…

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* and desperately trying to ignore hero-worshipping references to Freudian psychoanalytic simplifications that make me very, very angry…

** again you have to see them as people of their time. That we have outgrown some (most?) of their ideas does not mean they do not have something to say.

One of the good things about moving to the other end of the world is that you have to let go of a lot of objects you once thought of as important. Even better is to find theses little lost treasures of your past scattered between your families’ and friends’ living rooms on one of your rare ‘homecomings’.

When I found Peter Høeg’s ‘Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow’ between my mother mystery books I had to smile, remembering Smilla’s untameable, rash character and the million ways to look at snow. Re-reading it, I enjoyed it as much as the first time, maybe even more, because the second time around you are able to appreciate the well crafted, poetry-like quality of Peter Høeg’s writing, rather than following the captivating, and often fantastical, plot.

So I though I get ‘The Quiet Girl’, Peter Høeg’s 5th novel, for some light holiday reading; I wonder if this book will make more sense the second time around, but I am not worried, it does not have too. There are many reviews online, the Guardian review by Caroline Miller, The Independent book review by James Urquhart , and  New York Times review by Liesl Schillinger*. I am not in any position to add another one. However, if you grew up with Gabriel García Márquez, get captivated by Paul Auster, devour everything by Haruki Murakami, or – in general – do not have to scientifically understand what the words mean, but are able to savour in the poetic – and in this case acoustic - imagery that is created in your head**… go get it.

*) who on earth is this woman and who gave her that book to review @#$%
**) Ms Schillinger isn’t one of these people

I took this picture in Berlin in August somewhere along the Spree. The words translate to something like: ”You dream me. I you. Do not fear, I wont wake you”

Urban Message #8, Berlin August 2011

The 2 lines reminded me of something half-forgotten, so I googled the text. It is part of the Song “Stella Maris”, by Einstürzende Neubauten, lyrics by Blixa Bargeld. After 5 year abroad I almost forgot how beautiful German Weltschmerz is ^_^…

Video: “Stella Maris” Einstürzende Neubauten feat. Meret Becker.

The next image was taken on one of my favorite walks along the Kapiti coast near Wellington (so it stretches the term “Urban” a bit ). I am not sure if the building is still in use, but it was a lifesaver shed on the beach – maybe still is. Strange to think that this was – or is – a real sign.

Urban Message #9, Kapiti coast near Wellington, October 2011

“I’m going to learn something I didn’t know when I began. I’m going to discover how I feel and what I think about it during the process. I will break off little bits of my head and they will become characters and things will happen and they will talk to each other.” Neil Gaiman about developing a story

Two of my absolute writer/artist/human-being heros in one of my favourite publications! ^_^ …

In conversation: Neil Gaiman talks to Shaun Tan