Karlskrona – The Innsmouth of Sweden, Exhibit B

This is the second post in the series wherein I try to share to horrifying truths of the sleepy coastal town known as Karlskrona (or, affectionately, as Innsmouth). This will be a short one. A while ago I was walking through the winter in the year of our Lordi 2010 and I was reminded of what kind of place this is. I namely beheld… THIS!

Grant!

Nope, I’m not talking about our friend Hugh. If you’re reading  this post looking for stuff on Hugh Grant I probably lured you here through my cunning use of tags. Consider yourself pwnd. Instead, I’m talking about a grant that I and my company has received from the municipality here in Karlskrona as part of their annual distribution of wealth called Öppna Sinnet. The total amount is 25.000 SEK and is to be used in a “project with signs – virtual/real in the city about the city to engage the residents” (that is their way of expressing it, translated by me, without commas or any kind of language  that makes it possible to understand what the hell we’re doing in this project).

I would see the project as an interactive way of engaging with your surroundings and changing them through, what Alan Moore calls magic; words! It’s going to première at the VIVA festival in Karlskrona this summer, so you’ll have to wait until then to discover the true awesomeness of this Föränderliga Rum.

I won’t say that much much more than that at this moment. We’re all excited to finally start working on this thing for real and I’ll keep posting, thus keeping you posted, on this as it slowly grows into a beast. I’ll try to keep the hype low until there’s a point to it. Until then, check this out.

Föränderliga Rum - click to make huge

Öppet brev till SJ

I usually post here in English, but I’ve written a friendly letter to SJ (Swedish Railways) asking them how they’re doing, catching up etc. that I thought I’d share with you all. If you know Swedish, you’ve probably been to Sweden and know what I’m talking about when I’m bashing on them. Please leave your own horror-stories and reactions in the comments field,  I’m hoping they follow my advice at the end of the letter and check this blogpost out. If you don’t know Swedish, just stay tuned and I’ll soon post my next piece of evidence in the “Innsmouth of Sweden”-series.

Karlskrona – The Innsmouth of Sweden, Exhibit A

Ever since I moved to the sleepy coastal town of Karlskrona I’ve sensed that all is not as it should be. This is usually the case with me though, something often seems… strange about a lot of things. But the case of Karlskrona is rather different from my otherwise unhealthy paranoia – there’s good a reason for it.
When I call Karlskrona the Innsmouth of Sweden I’m of course referring to the story “The Shadow over Innsmouth“, written by H.P. Lovecraft, wherein a lone traveler decides to visit the town of Innsmouth on the east coast of the US. Why would this young man do such a thing?  To study and admire the architecture, of course! As often in Lovecraft’s stories the protagonist is an educated man with too much curiosity for his own good.

HP Lovecraft, seen here with his Merry Gang of Wacky Pranksters.

What I want to do in this series of posts is present some evidence for my claim that Karlskrona is the Innsmouth of Sweden. We’ll start with a real treat. Literally.

Exhibit A:  Mythos Pizza
At my local pizzeria you can order a pizza called Mythos. If you don’t quite get why this is weird or scary you should check out this wikipedia article. It describes the Cthulhu Mythos (a.k.a. Lovecraft Mythos) and the basic message of the stories of Lovecraft and his Mythos is this: “There are a lot of scary stuff of which we cannot speak without going batshit insane and those who do witness the workings of these things are forced to realize their own insignificance in the universe.”
As for the Pizza; it was OK. Normally, I consider myself a vegetarian, but I had to make a sacrifice to the elder gods and try this one. If you ever eat at Pizzabutiken make sure you try their Quattro Formaggi instead, it’s the best I’ve ever had. However, I would keep away from all seafood in Karlskrona, you never know who’s relative you may be chewing on. You may also find it soothing to quietly chant: “Ia, Ia, Cthulhu Fhtagn” while ordering, it makes my fins tickle, at least…

In conclusion, I’d also like to invite you to join the Facebook Group for those of us who have realized the horror of our little town and who are not afraid to say it.

“You see what happens, Larry?!”

Just thought I’d let you know what happens to you (or rather, how you are remembered) if you decide to fight back against imperialism and mistreatment of indigenous populations:

BTW if you didn’t recognize the quote in the title here’s a clip to clarify
Big Lebowski – Dude, Do You See What Happens????? Do You?????

EDIT: That link only contains the wonderfully censored TV-version where the line “fuck a stranger in the ass” is turned into “fight a stranger in the alps”.  Here’s the uncensored version:
Walter Sobchak FTW

Also, if anyone has ever fought a stranger in the alps I’d love to hear about it.

Where I’m at

http://player.radiolive.se/new/t4/?utm_source=RadioLive&utm_medium=Lyssna&utm_content=RadioLive&player=default

Assignment for school: Re-Appropriation

In our course ‘Culture and Media Studies’ our assignment for this Monday (16/11) was to “Write an analysis of [an] image/video in which you define the concept (e.g. bricolage, counter-bricolage, appropriation or re-appropiation) and how the chosen image is an example of it.

RPGs

Lately, my dormant interest in RPGs has had a violent resurgence. This is mainly to blaim on a few games and a lot of podcasts. So… This will be a post directed towards gamers and others interested. If you’re not a gamer and thus don’t understand what I’m talking about here, I just don’t think I give a shit.

Marxism and Monsters

Just a quick one.
By discussing all kinds of weird shit today i remembered a talk that was sent to me a couple of years ago given by China Miéville about how one, as a marxist, can look at and use monsters in literature and film. In this talk he puts monsters in their historical and social context, while keeping the whole thing low on heavy theory. Even if some of the stuff in it are no-brainers it’s still a nice and entertaining 40 min listen and if you’re at all interested you can get it by right-clicking here and selecting “Save as”. But I’m guessing you already knew that.

I promise an update somewhat related to this topic in the near future…

GMscript

I just stumbled upon (not with the stumbleupon app) a wonderful GreaseMonkey script called ‘Completely Idiotic‘. What it does is that it adds the phrase “Which is, of course, completely idiotic” to the end of paragraphs on major news sites. For some strange reason I found this very amusing, changed the script and uploaded a Swedish version for Swedish sites. Download it here… Or die (BTW… sorry to tell you this, but you’re actually gonna die anyway, let’s just say it was because you didn’t download the script)