Control

I recently read about how the photographer and now director Anton Corbijn will be attending the screening of his first major film Control, the biopic of the late Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. The film has been written up well at least once. I hope to catch it here during the Stockholm Film Festival at the end of November and see the director himself present it. I've come to enjoy Corbijn's grainy, contrasty style (Miles Davis, Tom Waits, William Burroughs and Iggy Pop), a style which first attracted my eye in Breathless—in which Jean-Luc Godard used only a hand held camera and all natural light. This new film also sounds like a labor of love on the part of the director. Only one or two other films this year have woken me up, the new Paul Thomas Anderson film There Will Be Blood and Quentin Tarantino's latest, Death Proof, which was a good but cheap and highly stylized thrill. Nevertheless, here's a trailer for the forthcoming Control.



Here's the write up for those who can read Swedish.

You Know You're In Sweden When...

you are walking down the street on a rainy Thursday evening, slightly cold (both you and the temperature), and you happen upon a fox doing it's sly thing, ducking in and out, and around bushes, completely aloof and uninterested in the human walking his way. I had the desire to take a photo, but there are many experiences that photos cannot capture.

That Time of Year

I quite often grow tired once the school year has gotten rolling and then I need some chill music to relax to. Some years ago it was the Swedish DJ J�sper Dahlb�ck. I happened across this at pitchforkmedia.com and it seems to fit the bill. I likehow the guitars are woven into the beats, licks almost like Pink Floyd at times.

As Radiohead, So Go The Charlatans

Now The Charlatans have one-upped Radiohead and are giving away their new album for free. Not even one pence! Check it out the full story here. I haven't heard much of their music in years, maybe a single or two, which I appreciated. (They always seemed like a "singles" band to me anyways, also a sort of second coming of The Stone Roses.) Nevertheless, if you are so inclined, check it out there. The single is forthcoming soon, while the rest of the album will be available by January or thereabouts. Enjoy.

Radiohead - Videotape live from the basement 2006

This song haunts with the beauty of "Pyramid Song" and I am now eagerly awaiting In Rainbows, the new Radiohead album to be downloaded (at your chosen price, for Christ's good will!) at inrainbows.com. In a rather adventuresome spirit, Radiohead has decided to release their album as a download first and allowing us buyers to pay what we think we should pay. I am quite sure the business world sees this as financial suicide, but I recognize it as a herald to the new age of partonship that once gave the poets a financial life on which to float while they wrote their great works, a la ancient Rome (and perhaps Greece, too?). And they created some good works back then, now didn't they.

The Prize of Prizes

Around a year ago when I first found myself pondering a new life here in Sweden, I became excited about the possibility of being present in Stockholm when the Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced. This year I will be eating lunch between International Economics and English B when the big pronouncement beacons out into the world. Here you can read an interesting article for an overview on the process, should you be so inclined. I became excited when reading it because one hypothesizer suggested that American Cormac McCarthy stands as a front runner, although I've heard fellow American Philip Roth mentioned more frequently. It never ceases to amaze me at how much people get haughty about literature at this time of year. I guess this proves better than a lack of interest, but why not show more interest 24/7/365? I'd piss myself if two high school seniors busted into boastful, roastful talk over who was better, McCarthy or Delillo? Fuentes or Amos Oz?

A guy can dream a little, can't he?

Teaching Foreigners Swedish

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I wish I could explain how funny this is to people who don't speak Swedish, but there you have it, in any case.