Ten to one

  I was at the new Starbucks in Bergen a few days ago, enjoying the first really tasty Cappuccino coffee I've ever enjoyed in Norway ever (they can’t make it here). Something weird was going on or is going on. The female customers outnumbered the males ten to one, at least that. I sat there for an hour and the numbers stayed more or less the same.

  This is something I haven’t seen at any other Starbucks and I've been to a few across Europe. Perhaps I will investigate the matter and see if anyone has any explanation for the discrepancy.

  It was strange with almost only women present, but nice, too, of course, almost as if a conjunction of sisterhood descending on the place.

Scandal

  There has been a scandal in British retail book-sale business lately, but the scandal is, contrary to popular opinion not that WHSmith has found lots of controversial novels among their titles, but that they have chosen to remove those titles from their assortment. They have exposed themselves as eager supporters of censorship.

  When you read their press releases and the explanation they give their customers, on and off their website you find one bizarre and sick statement after another. Yes, it safe to say they are practically lined up. There have been many cases like this throughout history, where mainstream citizens impose their narrow morality on everybody else. It wasn't acceptable then and isn't now.

  An oppressive society always blame art in order to distract people from what those in charge should be blamed for and this is certainly such a case. Established retailers and publishers have constantly supported this vile practice.

  A guy by the name of Jeremy Wilson in the online magazine Kernel eagerly call for censorship, and doing so without a single original and free thought in his head. He speaks of filth. What he writes is filth. Find themes most objectionable in people’s eyes, distort the truth, make things up to support your tyranny of the mind. The true scandal is that people like him and those eager beavers at WHSmith and elsewhere have any influence what so ever. The hysteria grows, as it often does in cases like this and all independent titles, those not published by established publishers come under scrutiny, which is exactly what the established publishers desire. I wouldn't put it beyond them to have planned and actually orchestrated this.

  There are lots of talk about ending censorship in foreign countries, but very little of ending it here, in the west, where it is just as bad. It's about money, of course, but also about power and influence.

  Censorship is wrong, without exceptions. Controversial titles should be hailed as a great thing, not removed from public eye. It should be proudly displayed.  It is all the boring and bland mainstream titles that should be thrown on the garbage heap where they belong.

Deep waters

  Indie author Amos Keppler's novel ShadowWalk is, among many great things a celebration of multiculturalism.

  What makes Amos Keppler's books unique compared to all others is the uncanny vision he brings to his work. I have read about half of his works by now, and even though the novels are vastly different from each other, they share that unique quality of being different.

  The visual power he brings to his stories is unquestionable. Others have related how they are able to easily visualize what they read in his books. I agree!

  But what the stories are about more than anything is the deep waters of humanity. You haven’t experienced truly deep in books until you read this one. At least I hadn't.

  The story is about Jill, a young woman, among other youths of all colors and many cultures on a quest to find herself and get a life, about her getting it, finding everything making life worth living. It is found under a rock, right before her eyes, and she grabs it, grabs its tail with both hands and holds on to it with all the considerable might she possesses.

  It’s about the dangers seekers find out there, on the freedom road.

  It’s about the mysteries of human existence and everything under the moon, actually. I would argue that it is about everything and contains everything, but that would not be completely accurate.

  It’s one hell of a book and you will find yourself immersed in it, deep below the surface of its waters, its fire lake.

  I wouldn't claim that each paragraph is a joy to read, but it feels that way. The prose is just as unique as the story itself.

  The boys and girls described in the book are teenagers, but this is a story for truly mature readers of all ages. It is a fantasy book. It is not a fantasy book. You will find no boxed in genre story here. You will find life in all its shades.

  No less.

Summer is over

  I like all seasons. They are change and encourage change, but in today’s oppressive society summer is clearly the best.

  It isn't because of the high temperatures, even though I love those, too. The foremost reason is the most obvious: I can more than anything be human. There is not work, not school, but weeks of relaxation, of embracing everything still great in life.

  I can say fuck it to all the trappings of society and that always feels good. Most people aren't able to even imagining a completely different life, but we are.

  We swim, swim a lot, we dive deep into the forest and the night, enjoying every single second of our life, celebrating it in all forms. We know it is temporary, even as we are very aware that it shouldn't be, shouldn't be that at all.

  School is shit, both in its foundation and execution. It’s just a place where you educate robots, mold people into slaves better suited to perform in the harsh existence as an adult. I want to quit school, but I hold it out, because the alternative: being without a higher education in today’s cutthroat society is even worse.

  True learning is nothing like this, this pale imitation of it. If anyone wanted to study anything it should be because they wanted to, not because they feel brutally compelled to do so.

  So, while I seek and enjoy every radical environment I can find in this tiny Scandinavian village of mine, I keep torturing myself with the words and actions of others.

  Summer is over.

Buyers of IPhone

  A very accurate description. People line up for days to buy that shit?
  We live in an insane world with insane people. It's really an excellent illustration how the sick consumer society is kicking into even sicker overdrive.

  It isn't strange that the world is so out of whack.

The boy doll

  I don’t know how many negative articles there are about Justin Bieber out there, since I haven’t really checked. The entire subject, the very thought fills me with disgust. But I would imagine there is quite a few. There should be.

  Here is my contribution:

  He can’t sing, literally can’t sing. Not even the wonders of modern technology can fix his weak voice.

  The songs are hardly songs at all, but a tired, old repetitive, uninventive record stuck at the end of the melody. I most certainly agree with Danish newspapers calling him as real as Santa Claus.

  He is a sale pitch, really and nothing more, a celebration of banalities, of the mindless, of prostitution, of people selling themselves. When millions of hysterical girls scream his name many, way too many young boys want to be him. He is, in short a typical early twenty-first century role model, one not first and foremost selling his songs, but an idea, a scheme of submission and enslavement, one tool among many spearheading his masters’ ambitions of a world without freedom.

  One Direction and similar boy and girl bands fit the same mold.

  When he visited Norway this week there was little difference between that and him visiting any country, anywhere. We saw stupidity incarnated. We saw rich people pay for their daughters to meet him face to face, saw him being treated like royalty everywhere and while there was some reflective thought in that and other regards, reflective and critical thought was mostly absent in the public sphere.

  The music publishing industry, like the movie and book industries doesn't sell art, but a lifestyle, one without awareness and independence. They have always supported artists serving up mindless drivel the most.

  It’s very similar to general advertising. Advertising doesn't first and foremost sell a given product, but instills in almost everybody a need for being popular, to belong, of being accepted by family, friends and society. In the boy or girl doll the modern human youth projects his or her longings, an excuse to not seek true freedom, to not live an independent and radical and aware life.

  I don’t wonder why the world is filled with silly love songs. It is because those in charge have ordained it.

The stark truth

  This is so spot on, so accurate, so telling. All people, but especially those professing to be radicals (but clearly aren't) should take it to heart. I will put it to you, to you guys right now: Stop being gatekeepers, stop defending the system by ridiculing system critics and buying tyranny propaganda.

  Others about this subject:

  The absurd and ridiculous

  Watchdogs