The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore

Here’s another video for you;

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore was awarded the Oscar for best animated short earlier this year. It’s an amazing film – enjoy!

Adoring the few

I tend to get philosophical when it comes to world affairs and politics. It can be a bit overwhelming at times. Even though we’re constantly presented with what is happening everywhere at all times, we’re not able to take it all in. So then, in an effort to take some of it in, at least, I grab hold of an issue or thought, and try to grasp why it’s so important.

Right now, this thought is worship. It can be the worship of a god, a political leader, or even a celebrity. I think it borders on obsession, and thereby addiction, to need some glorified individual to guide you on. And to me, this thought is frightening.

It seems that we as human beings are quite easily persuaded to take this role – both the role of a leader, and the role of being led. If everyone does what you tell them to, it makes life easy for you. Likewise, if someone is in charge, there’s less need for the rest to think, to take responsibility. But, while it might be hard work to become a leader, being part of the crowd is easily accomplished, though not necessarily less useful.

See? I told you I get philosophical.

…and no charges were ever brought against him

When I was an intern on a project dealing with rendition and secret detention a few months ago, I read those words several times a day. The only sentence that might challenge it in terms of frequency, is “…and his fate and whereabouts remain unknown”.

How many have heard of the term “extraordinary rendition”? And even if it sounds familiar, can you explain it?

Formally speaking, it is the practice of sending a foreign criminal or terrorist suspect covertly to be interrogated in a country with less rigorous regulations for the humane treatment of prisoners. 

In other words: It’s torturing and, sometimes, killing in the name of justice and democracy, under the disguise of national security. It’s extracting “intelligence” through ill-treatment. It is, without a doubt, one of the most serious and widespread crimes against humanity committed in the past fifteen years.

I wonder: What makes someone a terrorist suspect? The definition says “the practice of sending”. Who does it? How do they do it? Who do they have to collaborate with to make it possible? How are the “suspects” treated? Does this combine well with international law? Do they care if it does?

Expressing the inexpressible

What would this world be without music?

It would be less cheerful, for one. Less understanding. Less poetic. Less fun.

You might argue that the world already seriously lacks these qualities, despite the amount of music being made. But I still think music is of great value to our existence, and our relationship to each other. It may be music just as dramatic as the sentence I just wrote, or eccentric stuff like 6 minutes of all the ducks are swimming in the water on repeat. Basically, it can be no more than a few people banging on some drums, or trying out some chords on a guitar. A lot of strange works of art have been characterized as music through the years, like John Cage’s 4’33” composition from 1952 – four minutes and thirty-three seconds worth of the musician not playing his instrument. The composition is rather about the sounds the musician hears while not playing during those four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Some would just dismiss it as nonsense, though others might be fascinated by the creativity at work.

And that’s a big part of the beauty of music, right?

The shy explorer

A very good friend of mine once told me: Anita, you’re very good at hiding things. And that’s not a good thing.

It’s funny; when looking up the word ‘shyness’ in my dictionary (trying to find, not the meaning of the word, but a better synonym to use), the sentence that’s used to illustrate the word is this:

Gerald’s shyness was often mistaken for disinterest.

But disinterest is not a synonym of shyness – it’s a consequence or, maybe, a deviation. Which my dictionary seems to understand perfectly.

This very common phenomenon is not often talked about. It seems, as in the true spirit of shyness, this behaviour or feeling (or whatever word one might use to characterize it) shouldn’t be explained or thought about – it’s too common to receive adequate attention. Because most people are shy, right? But, as with most things, there are so many levels within shyness which makes this question pretty worthless.

Norway’s butter crisis goes global

In relation to my last post, “Butter crisis”, I thought I’d post this awesome little thing – you should watch it:

The Colbert Report – Norway’s butter shortage

So, our crisis has reached an international audience. Excuse me while I hide in shame.

Butter crisis

I’m reading the news. It’s not very cheerful.

There has been another school shooting at Virginia Tech University in the US. Otherwise, the country is having enormous economic difficulties and high unemployment rates, like many other countries across the globe.

Greece is in trouble, and no one really knows how they’re going to cope. Italy’s following. In general, the EU is in pretty deep shit.

The results of the Arab Spring are uncertain, and the attack on protesters in Syria are continuing.

But what is the headline in Norway – the country I’m from and living in at the moment – which has been repeated every day the past weeks? WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH BUTTER! Yeah, that’s right. Where is our damn butter?! I mean, Christmas is coming up. Christmas! We need to make cookies. Lots of them. Lots more than we are able to eat, so we can have something to serve our relatives when they come for coffee before Easter kicks in. I mean, come on! Sure, the reason there is no butter is because most Norwegian women have been eating nothing else since the summer because it’s low carb. I mean, it’s not like we want to get fat or anything.

Fortunately they just said on the news that butter has now been shipped from Denmark. Thank God. It’s important to have good allies at such difficult times. At least until we decide that Danish butter isn’t good enough.

Nostalgia

There’s something special about old pictures. The past few days I’ve been going through lots of pictures, from the beginning of the 20th century up until the very end. The 1970s, 80s, and 90s have a good deal of hair and glasses to offer. The clothes range from very cool to looking like a curtain your grandmother might have. Also, there are quite a few where it’s pretty hard to understand what the motive of the picture was originally supposed to be. My grandmother and grandfather had many talents and I loved them dearly, but when it came to photographing they both had the habit of moving the whole camera downwards when pressing the button. This has resulted in a lot of photos where you can see a lot of colourful people (usually the older and, thereby, taller one’s) from the neck down. Alternatively, squeezed into a corner, or not in the picture at all. But that’s kind of part of the charm. It makes us laugh and think of them.

So I thought I’d post some of the awesome old photos I’ve come across, in the spirit of nostalgia:

1954 (probably)

Early 1970s

1988

Politicians, anyone?

If there is a country, or a large group of people, out there who are in need of some political leaders, Norway’s got the answer.

We are happy to offer (and I probably speak for most of the population here) a number of politicians with vast experience within various political fields, such as justice and immigration. Although they’ve never formed a government, these people represent what has become one of Norway’s biggest parties.

Now, you should know – they do have some weaknesses. But who doesn’t, right! These are purely human mistakes that are easily smoothed over by regretting what they said five minutes ago. Problem solved!

‘Mamihlapinatapai’

I like people. I mean, we’re fascinating. It’s like my mom said the other day, while watching television: look at that nose, isn’t it weird? – there are so many strange noses. And the thought that all 7 billion noses in the world have a unique shape is pretty fascinating. A unique nose, unique eyes, big ears, small ears, dark hair, blonde hair. Skinny and chubby. Tall and short. Quiet and loud. Shy and outgoing. And all the layers in-between. This is part of what makes us fascinating, even to ourselves, because we don’t understand it. The variety is too complex for us to fully get a grip on what life really is. 

Which is why ideas like these are so cool: On July 24, 2010, people all around the world were encouraged to submit videos they made on that day to YouTube. This resulted in the submission of 4,500 hours of footage from 192 countries. And this became Life in a Day.