HERLOFF says ...

If I was a motorbike, I'd be a 1934 BMW R7

I don't ride bikes. I don't have a drivers license. I'm not interested in cars or motorbikes. But that doesn't mean that I don't recognize a thing of beauty when I see it. This old girl was found hidden in a box and I found the story on Coolhunter.

MUTO by BLU

Get more right here :)

Power and Money: Amsterdam office design

I'm not sure I like all the gold. Imagine the place with loads of paper, an ugly computer, wires, books on the shelves ... Hmmmm. Maybe this office design works only if the office is empty?

What I do like a lot is the way the circles of the design interact.

The lamps are the central element, their spotlights woven into the carpet, cutting shelves in the walls and drawing circles on the tables.

More images of the Spotlight Office design on Coolhunter

Goodbye, Mr. Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut is dead.

A few weeks back, he fell and suffered a severe brain damage, which has now cost him his life.

The absurdity of that somehow mirrors the dark humor, that I have loved so much in his writing. His masterful unmasking of the absurdity of war in "Slaughterhouse Five" was my first encounter with his humorous touch on dead serious matters. And if you read on through his body of work, you'll find that no matter how serious the subject matter is, Mr. Vonnegut will keep you laughing at the absurdity of it all. Give 'em Hell up there, Ol man!

Meet Jacob Noel

I've added another new link on my blogroll. It is a site by my very dear friend, Jacob Noel, whom I've known for ... well ... I guess it's about 18 years. Jacob is one of a kind. Although educated at The Danish Art Academy, he remains refreshingly unimpressed with the often hollow and self-gratifying socio-culture of the art world.

For the past years, Jacob has focused on photography with a strong thematic passion for urbanity - particularly architecture. In Jacobs work, architecture is experienced twofold - as a landscape within which human existence unfolds and as a strange and sometimes lonely entity which takes on a different meaning and existence in the absence of human beings.

In one of his projects, Jacob created a series of photos of empty sports arenas, particularly in Barcelona. The photos were tagged with information about when the last event took place and when the next one would begin - tags that gave the photos a strange, emphasised emptiness - a time/space suspension. Another project - which is still in the making - investigates urbanity in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Damascus and Barcelona.

Besides being a fantastic and inspiring human being, Jacob is a generous soul (always has been), so I am the lucky owner of some of his drawings and photos. I've got one hanging over my worspace at home. It's possible to catch a glimpse of it in the photo in this post. 

Anyway - now you have the opportunity to enjoy some of his work online.

A boy and a camera-phone

I got a new cell phone a few weeks ago. It's not a high end, drool-provoking gadget, but it's a whole lot nicer than the other cells I've had. I've been hopelessly lo-tech in the cell arena.

This is my first camera-phone. So I'm just beginning to enjoy some of the enormous fun that can be had with the low quality camera. About a decade later than everybody else.

A few days back, my 8 years-old son, Konrad, borrowed the phone and took a lot of pictures while we walked home after having dinner at a restaurant.

When children take photographs, they often naturally hit a spontaneity that adults have to struggle to achieve. Their photographs lack intellectualizing. Their choice of motives are direct and devoid of incomprehensible philosophical intent. The world they depict through the lens is present tense, and the meaning they involuntarily convey through the pictures is honest and simple.

I've assembled some of his Konrad's photos in an album. I haven't cropped any of the photos, they are exactly as they came via the infrared port onto my pc. There are also a few I took of Konrad.

You can see the album here, or click on the link in the side bar. Just above the Beijing album.

Recommended: Rauschenberg!

Aros, the art museum in Aarhus is showing a rather comprehensive collection of the works of Robert Rauschenberg.

I love Rauschenberg.

So we'll be dropping by Aros during our summer holiday. And I'm really, really, really looking forward to that!

Want to be a sci-fi writer?

Strange Horizons is a weekly web-based magazine of and about speculative fiction. The term "speculative fiction" refers to what is more commonly known as "sci-fi," but which properly embraces science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, slipstream, and a host of sub-genres.

At Strange Horizons they receive a lot of stories from hopeful writers. In fact, they get so many stories that they have had to discourage some writers by publishing the list below. If you like it, you might also want to check out their guidelines for submitting horror stories.

Thanks to Jed from Strange Horizons for granting me permission to publish it here.

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Stories We've Seen Too Often

Main plot types are numbered; subspecies and variants receive letters.

1. Person is (metaphorically) at point A, wants to be at point B. Looks at point B, says "I want to be at point B." Walks to point B, encountering no meaningful obstacles or difficulties. The end. (A.k.a. the linear plot.)


2. Creative person is having trouble creating.
   1. Writer has writer's block.
   2. Painter can't seem to paint anything good.
   3. Sculptor can't seem to sculpt anything good.
   4. Creative person's work is reviled by critics who don't understand how brilliant it is.
   5. Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.


3. Visitor to alien planet ignores information about local rules, inadvertantly violates them, is punished.
   1. New diplomat arrives on alien planet, ignores anthropologist's attempts to explain local rules, is punished.


4. Weird things happen, but it turns out they're not real.
   1. In the end, it turns out it was all a dream.
   2. In the end, it turns out it was all in virtual reality.
   3. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is insane.
   4. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is writing a novel and the events we've seen are part of the novel.


5. An A.I. gets loose on the Net despite the computer it was on not being connected to the Net.
   1. An A.I. gets loose on the Net but the author doesn't have a clear concept of what it means for software to be "loose on the Net." (Hint: the Net is currently a collection of individual computers, not some kind of big ubercomputer; software doesn't currently run in the wires between computers.)


6. The future is soulless.
   1. In the future, all learning is electronic, until kid is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a book.
   2. In the future, everything is electronic, until kid is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a wise old person who's lived a non-electronic life.


7. Protagonist is a bad person. (We don't object to this in a story; we merely object to it being the main point of the plot.)
   1. Bad person is told they'll get the reward that they deserve, which ends up being something bad.
   2. Terrorists (especially Osama bin Laden) discover that horrible things happen to them in the afterlife (or otherwise get their comeuppance).
   3. Protagonist is portrayed as really awful, but that portrayal is merely a setup for the ending, in which they see the error of their ways and are redeemed.


8. A place is described, with no plot or characters.


9. A "surprise" twist ending occurs. (Note that we do like endings that we didn't expect, as long as they derive naturally from character action. But note, too, that we've seen a lot of twist endings, and we find most of them to be pretty predictable, even the ones not on this list.)
   1. The characters are described as if they're humans, but in the end it turns out they're not humans.
   2. Creatures are described as "vermin" or "pests" or "monsters," but in the end it turns out they're humans.
   3. The author conceals some essential piece of information from the reader that would be obvious if the reader were present at the scene, and then suddenly reveals that information at the end of the story. (This can be done well, but rarely is.)
   4. Person is floating in a formless void; in the end, they're born.
   5. Person uses time travel to achieve some particular result, but in the end something unexpected happens that thwarts their plan.
   6. The main point of the story is for the author to metaphorically tell the reader, "Ha, ha, I tricked you! You thought one thing was going on, but it was really something else! You sure are dumb!"


10. Someone calls technical support; wacky hijinx ensue.
    1. Someone calls technical support for a magical item.
    2. Someone calls technical support for a piece of advanced technology.
    3. The title of the story is 1-800-SOMETHING-CUTE.
    
    
11. Scientist uses himself or herself as test subject.


12. Evil unethical doctor performs medical experiments on unsuspecting patient.


13. Office life turns out to be soul-deadening, literally or metaphorically.


14. In the future, criminals are punished much more harshly than they are today.
    1. In the future, the punishment always fits the crime.
    2. In the future, the American constitutional amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment has been repealed, or is interpreted very narrowly, or is just ignored by the author.


15. White protagonist is given wise and mystical advice by Holy Simple Native Folk.


16. A party of D&D characters (usually including a fighter, a magic-user, and a thief, one of whom is an elf and one a dwarf) enters a dungeon (or the wilderness, or a town, or a tavern) and fights monsters (usually including orcs).
    1. A group of real-world humans who like roleplaying find themselves transported to D&D world.


17. An alien observes and comments on the peculiar habits of humans, for allegedly comic effect.
    
    1. The alien is fluent in English and completely familiar with various  English idioms, but is completely unfamiliar with human biology and/or with such concepts as sex or violence and/or with certain specific extremely common English words.
    2. The alien takes everything literally.


18. Space travel is wonderful and will solve all our problems. (We may agree that space travel is pretty cool, but we'd rather that weren't the whole point of the story.)


19. Man has an awful, shrewish wife; in the end he gets revenge on her, by (for example) killing her or leaving her.


20. Some characters are in favor of immersive VR, while others are opposed to it because it's not natural; they spend most of the story's length rehashing common arguments on both sides.


21. Person A tells a story to person B (or to a room full of people) about person C.
    1. In the end, it turns out that person B is really person C (or from the same organization).
    2. In the end, it turns out that  person A is really person C (or has the same goals).
    3. In the end, there's some other ironic but predictable twist that would cast the whole story in a different light if the reader hadn't guessed the ending early on.


22. People whose politics are different from the author's are shown to be stupid, insane, or evil, usually through satire, sarcasm, stereotyping,  and wild exaggeration.
    1. In the future, the US or the world is ruled by politically correct liberals, leading to awful things.
    
    
    2. In the future, the US or the world is ruled by fascist conservatives, leading to awful things.
    
    

You've gotta have a hobby

I've mentioned a few times that I want to start painting again. It's not that I'm good at it or that I've done it frequently for any period of time. It's just that I love it, and that I have been drawing/painting with regular intervals since I was a child.

However, due to everyday life, work, family, other interests, social obligations (blahblahblah - insert the usual excuses), painting has become very infrequent. And I grow rusty and have to start all over. Almost. 

The problem is, that painting is such a big part of me. When I paint, I lose sense of time and place, and enter such a wonderful, floaty, strangely meditative mindset. I concentrate so fully on what I'm doing that all else fades. I don't think I know of anything so well suited to combat stress. Well ... I can think of a few other things, but let's leave it at that, shall we?

So ... why do I stop? Maybe because I'm a perfectionist and I get pissed off at my own in-capabilities. Which is a bad excuse, because I'm not very ambitious when it comes to my creative enterprises. Maybe it's because I end up fighting a picture and then escape from it - instead of just leave it and start another one. Now that's clever. An escape from escapism. Just shows that I don't know what's best for me.

Enki Bilal wants to be a painter

I have admired the work of Enki Bilal since I stumbled upon him sometime in the late 1980s. Unfortunately, he publishes very rarely, and now, it seems, he has just published his final work in the "comics" genre.

Enki Bilal wants to be a painter. And who can blame him? Moebius also wanted to become an artist, and hopefully, Bilal will end up doing some fantastic art. The only real problem with that is, that from now on, his work will be a lot less accessible.

The stories that Bilal tells are less interesting than his graphic talent. Usually, the stories are set in a strange, futuristic urban landscape, and the new album, Memories of Outer Space, is no exception. I haven't read it yet, but I'm planning to buy it one of these days.

Bilal has participated in making several films, one of which is Immortel, which is based on The Woman Trap from the Nikopol Trilogy. I've seen a trailer, and I must admit that I would probably only watch it for that distinctive "Bilal Feel". The Woman Trap was, by the way, my first encounter with Bilal's work, and I still think it is one of his best albums along with the one he did about the Berlin Wall. However, I am looking forward to see what his art is going to be like.

Kvium: As Domestic as Milk and Oil

I love the art of Michael Kvium. I used to live in a flat here in Copenhagen where I could watch him work in his studio from our bedroom window. Sometimes he would place a painting on the floor and wander around it, late at night. Just pace around it. I was utterly fascinated and felt like a voyeur.

Kvium's art is ominous, and he has his own special take on a genre which is almost, but somehow not completely, in a surrealist tradition. He paints the human sickness. Or the human fragility. Or the human stripped naked of the cultural systems of pride, status and dignity. I don't know how to nail it, and that's what I love about his paintings. They are so terribly beautiful in their unsettling exposure of something inherently ugly. Being a mother, the painting above hits me like a hammer, exposing every tentacle I have stretched out in order to avoid the inevitable separation from my son. But there's more. Much, much more than that in that painting...