Northern tounge

Norways sexyestest dialect was recently found to be the northern tounge in a survey done for the site purdialekt.no by InFact, reported here by VG. Tore Jahren, the webmaster or boss or whatnot of purdialekt seems a little disapointed as he was quite sure it was the trønder dialect that was the sexiest. (It can still be so to him, thats ok, even if most of us thinks otherwise). He tries explain it with recent successfull artist hailing from the north - mentioning old-timers Albrigthsen and Hoel, funnyman Truls Svendsen and barely legal poppunkrockers Black Sheeps.

Copyright NRK (like the norwegian BBC)

He is neglecting to mention Bodø/northern superstar Joddski who, in his breaktrough hit said he'd qouth 'Leave your lady with sperm dripping from her chin' unquoth (a lot is sadly lost in translation here). Does'nt matter; there is no law against making a fool out of yourself. I do it all the time myself ;)

VG tries to solve this "mystery" by interviewing Jørn Hoel, once voted Norways sexyest male. He speaks about the sensuality of northern swearing. I, myself, is a proud speaker said tounge, have other theories: First of all; simply try some... northern tounge that is.

Second, and more boring perhaps, has to do with the evolution of said tounge. Life in the north was always rich and hard. My family had this myth that we were O'so poor; at the same time it is told of one of the great, but perhaps eccentric, pater familias that if his woman did not have the water boiling when he acame rowing with his catch of cod and salmon and whatnot he threw the fish away and they would have to eat only potatoes that day. Because he would only eat fresh fish.

My uncle pointed out to me that poor people neigther throws food nor sits in the church councils. Not in the 1850's anyway. I digress. Northerners might not always have had wheat and fresh vegetables; but we've had aplenty of both protein rich fish and the neccesary vitamins and such from rich yields of berries. The story of the freshfisheating forefather is probably a special, if not singular, case: but few, if any, have gone hungry and physicaly underdeveloped here.

That said. Life truly was, and in some ways still is, hard north of the polar circle. (Or the moral circle as it is called in navy slang). Dying is easy in a rowboat in the winter storms (a miniaturised vikingship with a crew of 17 [fembøring] was the standard) . If you study the churchbooks and genealogies you'll find it was quite normal for a woman to be widowed circa twice.

Now, what will life like this do to a dialect? Months in the dark confined to eating and fucking in your small house. Months of glorious rich summers with neverending days. Shouting from one boat to the next in storms. (I have never been outmatched by a southerner in a shoutingcontest). Whispering of love, to your love, knowing that every time you dare the straigths very well could be your last.

Any northerner who has traveled a bit can tell you; once you cross that line, that polar circle, you realize that all southerners seem... fragile. Cold. Weak. But you don't mention it, because you don't want to... you know, make them loose face. But all of us know - when shit goes down - you don't want weaklings in your boat.

Gravity

This be Wyff's favourite song of the moment. I did'nt get it at first; it is a little bland and the lyric seemed pathetic and cliché-like. But ofcourse, she has always been smarter than me. Apply your text analyziz skillz and you will likly find it to be funny, spiritual and heartbreaking in a very high brow sort of way...

"Gravity"

Something always brings me back to you.
It never takes too long.
No matter what I say or do I'll still feel you here 'til the moment I'm gone.

You hold me without touch.
You keep me without chains.
I never wanted anything so much than to drown in your love and not feel your reign.

[CHORUS:]
Set me free, leave me be. I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity.
Here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I'm supposed to be.
But you're on to me and all over me.

You loved me 'cause I'm fragile.
When I thought that I was strong.
But you touch me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone.

[CHORUS]

I live here on my knees as I try to make you see that you're everything I think I need here on
The ground.
But you're neither friend nor foe though I can't seem to let you go.
The one thing that I still know is that you're keeping me down

[Lyrics courtesy of azlyrics.com]

Metro is the new Gay

I try not to write about stuff like this. It is not that I'm exactly trying create some sort of feel-good site; not at all. Hmm. Not at all that. But if you wanted to be upset in anyway you could just read a newspaper, or start a fight with someone unbalanced and bigger than you, right? So no need for me to do that. To you, so you'd be, like, inadvertently upset, and like, take it out on me by not coming back, not writing that funny comment, and if you found some interesting message from my sponsors you'd, in spite, just write the adress manually, go to Googland and never come back, so that me and wyff would have to go hungry, like, if many ppl enough got that angry.

Arhg. I convinced myself. If you feel like, you know, be like an old person and shake your head at where the world is heading: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/oslo/article3537483.ece

Taken outside my house, just the other day.

And if you are linguisticly impaired, culturaly challenged or simply to retarted to read the divine norse language: google translate, as always, will solve your troubles. Don't worry bout it. If you behave this life, in your next, everything will be right as rain, and you too will be a norwegian.

Faquhar

Lyrics&music by Mats Hanssen - backing vocals and jazz hands by Wyff aka. Ubrukelig Emithriel.

Em -- C -- G -- D

I'm world weary like Frodo

ready to be extinct like the Dodo

I walk this earth in search

of Shade and Shelter

Longing to Find Love, like

Gamgee loved his Baggins

G -- Em -- D -- C -- G

I'm Faquhar; now I see

I might have tried to reach to far

Chorus: G -- Em -- D -- C

Faquhar, Faquhar; you walked the road alone

now you'll never see the end that we saw

Faquhar, you chose a different path than us

and you'll never get to feel what we felt

Faquhar, Faquhar; there's pity in your song

cause even greater strength must fail in the end

Now Tinkerbell assured me

the blessings all where true

Sol would warm my back

I'd find sweet water where I sat

but I find my lips are always dry

my soul is burning me alive

I'm Faquhar, Faquhar; now I see

I tried to reach to far

Chorus: G -- Em -- D -- C

Faquhar, Faquhar; you walked the road alone

now you'll never see the end that we saw

Faquhar, you chose a different path than us

and you'll never get to feel what we felt

Faquhar, Faquhar; there's pity in your song

cause even greater strength must fail in the end

The road has been a lonesome one

what light I saw were far away

Enlightenment eluded me

all wisdom found seem false to me

(Yeah, well) now I know my burning heart

will dwindle out in darkness - in darkness

I'm Faquhar, I'm //so so// sad to say

I tried - I tried - to reach to far

The Green Cross

I just spent an hour+ watching The Commonwealthclubs debate on Marijuana Economics (as shown on FORA.tv). Not really time well spendt, had it not been for one point that Im shamed to say I've missed in all my years as a ganja prophet: Most illegal growing takes place either inndoors or in national forrests.

The decriminalisation of ganja would save those out of the way spots perfect for growing your illegal crop and it would drasticly cut power consumption. Growing ganja takes so much power that most growers that do get caugth; get caugth either by their enormous powerbills or they (the smarter ones) get caugth right after they get caugth stealing power.

Not to get all inn the industrial hemp debate (neutering is a sad thing wether its done to people, dogs or plants) - but another green point regarding the ganja is that it has quite unike properties when it comes to combating soil erosion and desertspread. (Thats not why you should smoke it though...)

Audacity

What do you do when you have spilt your overflowing drinking horn of writing and find it hard to summon creativity? Maybe youre mad, maybe your sad, maybe your simply hung over or fucking sick of your pathetic life... You can do like dagbladet.no and a thousand blogs and sites and make a list!

... but that would make this blog as pathetic as my life or said newspaper. Oh, I know! I can link to a list: Pathetic Dagbladets list of sweet freeware. In norwegian ofcourse.

xkcd.com rocks!!! Click on pic to enlarge. Cory Doctorow can be found at his site craphound.com

The best musical video, like ever!

Wyff found this'unn; when I (re-)played it now prior to posting I started crying (just shed a couple of silent tears - no drama) and she said (smugly ;) "I'm getting really good at finding good songs, ain't I?" "It is not so much the song, as the video that is true genious." I said. She was silent for a second, then said "I've been thinking about this for a few days now, and I think it is the best video I've ever seen."

I think maybe I agree. And as one of them MTV-kids that is actualy saying sumthn.

To Valhalla!

The current issue of norwegian intelectual weekly newspaper Morgenbladet has a two page article about the language of war and "norwegian warrior culture". It is a problem in the 'enlightened media' that our warriors use the language of warriors; it dehumanizes the enemy which leaves us prone to treating him/her in less than honourable ways. (And I guess it gives us that unpleasant feeling of beeing at war.)

The concrete words in question are 'usle kryp' [lit. disgracefull creep; a term making allutions to that snake, I guess] and 'lekkert' [lit. deligthfull; sweet is the best translation though]. The first term needs context to soften it, the second needs context to shed light on what the problem was.

It seems quite clearly to be a man and not a creep.

Usle kryp: An officer called his afghan opposition by these words into a tv-camera after a roadside carbomb had killed one of his warriors. That he in the pain and defeat of loosing one under his charge used such words would not be disgracefull, had it not been for his justification. He thought his enemy to be disgracefull creeps for using carbombs. That, I think, is incorrect. To use carbombs is no less disgracefull than fighting with superior weapons.

Were he to call his enemy such words for using civilians as human shields he would be in his full right. If you are not fighting for your people: you have no right to bear arms. Your prophet and his mother cries when you disgrace his most holy name and the one true light that shines upon his beatifull face and the honour of Islam. Which makes the whole discussion void from my standpoint. It is not a question of can or can not; but a question of when such terms apply. The standard of knightly conduct has always been held high by the strong. So fuck that kind of honour. It is, truly, ussel ære. ('A creeps honour')

Lekkert: When a grenadier had made perfect hit he smiled to the camera and said 'sweet'. My childhoods liberal newspaper, Dagbladet, whoose fall from grace has been ever so long and seemingly ever continuing towards new depts of tabloidism for once had it right: "Det er ikke lekkert, det er ekkelt." ("It is not deligthfull, it is disgusting.") That is simply not something you say after killing men (women and children?). Especially from a position several clicks away from the assumed (?) badguys.

To conclude this part of the argument: You should respect your enemy. And dehumanizing him/her is a sure way not only to warcrimes and atrocities (look at US!) - but psycologicly there is a general agreement that it is quite impossible to heal wartraumas before the civillian-once-warrior rehumanizes the humans he did kill in battle.

Our guys. Don't fuck with them. We might not be that many, but we are stinking rich and provide the best training and equipment. Our special forces have been know to fuck "the best of the best" (Navy SEALs) 10 times out of 10 in training.

A term that sadly has'nt been discussed in the norwegian media is the naming of of the norwegian basecamp "Nidaros" . Nidaros is not only the old norwegian capitol (Trondhjem); it is the name of the cathedral where st. Olav is resting beneath the altar, and the only official catholic pilgrimage site in Norway.

First of all that is just stupid. The main propaganda item of our esteemed opposition is calling 'us' crusaders... Seriously, several people needs to get their asses fired over this. Second; we are many who still feel humbled by the now ancient defeat and loss of freedom - and thats on good days. On bad days we feel wrath and the urge to take to arms. Escpecially up north. We have been fuck'd by the southerners for a good millenia now - and there seems to be no fucking end to it.

You do not inspire patriotism by alluding to that snake of a southerner. So not only do you give points freely to your opposition - you nurture resentment at home. Nuff said.

The heraldic weapon of the norwegian army. The symbolic meaning I was thaugth during my year in the navy was that it refers to the oath of serving "God, King and Fatherland". Norwegian' hunters' (elite forces) are known to cut off the cross when they wear the crest on their berets: "... because noone stands above the king."

Interestingly enough Morgenbladet tries to make some sort of mute point of our warriors warcry "To Valhalla!!!". 'Maybe that was politicly incorrect aswell?' they seem to be asking. And while I like the spirit of the article; waging war poses some hard questions for a nation that is trying very hard to be peacefull.

But they know not enough of the warriors path. A man afraid of dying will not only do dishonourable acts; he will face greater risk of dying than the man who clearly faces danger. It is no dishonour onto your enemy - for he too will go to Valhalla; or the gardens of Allah if he so wishes.

I write sometimes of spells in this here blog; and this battlecry is a migthy spell indeed. To feast (drink, eat, fuck and figth - wake up the next day alive and without an hangover) for eternety with warriors who 'died with the sword in their hands' might be as much of a hell as a heaven (to me atleast).

Yet still, when I once uttered the words I felt a host of warriors eyes upon me; I felt power surging through my body - and my opponent who foolishly thought he could take me with his puny knife just because I was armed with naugth but my body; ran as fast as he could. I did'nt even cry that battlecry; I just stated, resigned to fighting and most likly dying, but atleast as a man: To Valhalla, then...

Postscriptum: It is very hard to find the truth of what the norwegian army actualy is. If you have served, have fougth in joint operations as our allies, and escpesialy if you have fougth against us: I would love to hear your stories - In the comments field below - or in an email if you want your stories and opinions kept out of the public view.

For precious girls everywhere

The movie Precious had gotten so many audience awards in film festivals this season I simply had to see it. And wow. See it, as soon as you can. It is a testament to the value of life and reading. Never before have I felt as much of an asshole simply for having the odd suicidal thought.