Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus

I recently rediscovering this little gem. This has always mananged to cheer me up. It's an article from the New York Sun, printed in 1897:

Dear Editor- I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, If you see it in The Sun, it's so. Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

-Virginia O'Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus? Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

In a world where iPods, videogames and reality tv rules and corrupts our minds, I find this inspiring and heartwarming.

Coffee & Cigarettes

These two go together like Bonnie and Clyde, Butch and Kid, John and Jane. They are the perfect combination (however unhealthy they may be). They can and never will work to the same degree on their own. One completes the other and enhances one another. These two evils can put you in a state of mind where everything suddenly becomes durable, be it just getting up in the morning and going to work, writing, composing, anything really. With coffee and cigarettes you transform into a detective from a 1930ties spy-novel, capable of solving the most puzzling murder known to man.

However, one downside should be mentioned. Once you've experienced this God-like combination you can never have one without feeling the need for the other. It takes your nicotine and/or caffein addiction to a whole new level.

And with that I'll leave you with a scene from a movie (coincidentally) entitled "Coffee & Cigarettes" by Jim Jarmusch, featuring Iggy Pop and Tom Waits having coffee and cigarettes.

Between Walls

Between Walls is a project I started upon getting back to playing piano, and for the first time began producing my own original drum patterns and beats. I'm very excited about it, and though there's still plenty of room for improvements, I feel like I've found my niche in music.

The style is a dark sort of Electronica - Trip Hop built up around catchy piano melodies.

I have fire songs up for listening (+ an experimental ambience piece consisting of a heavily distorted musical saw that really doesn't have anything to do with this project, I just thought it was pretty cool).

You can check 'em out HERE.

Dansk Frihed?

Hvilket menneske kan tillade sig at forhindre et andet menneske retten til at leve et liv uden frygt for forfølgelse og frihedsberøvelse?

Hvorfor kan man ikke se igennem kulturelle og religiøse baggrunde og anerkende mennesket bag?

Er Danmark virkelig så snæversynet og intolerant et land?

Er vi virkelig så lige glad med andre menneskers liv, så længe vi selv kan leve i fred?

Hvorfor skal vi være de eneste der fortjener den tryghed?

Hvad har vi gjort for at fortjene den tryghed ulig andre mennesker? Fordi vi tilfældig vis er så heldige at være født og opvokset i et land der gir' os den tryghed?

Netop de spørgsmål stiller jeg mig selv ofte for tiden.

Hvad er et demokrati værd når folk er så blinde?

Danmark er det Danmark vi kender idag netop fordi man kæmpede imod den undertrygelse vi ser idag. Alligevel vælger hovedparten at kigger den anden vej når vi ser den ene efter den anden overskrift i medierne om de groteske politiske beslutninger der blever foretaget af neonationalistiske uhumane magtindehavende politiker. Personer vi har valgt til at tage de beslutninger, men så sandelig også personer og partier vi kan fratage den magt til at foretage disse beslutninger! Dog er det kun de få der aktivt siger dem imod og viser deres modstand.

Hvordan kan vi være bange for andre mennesker fra andre lande der kommer og beder os om at får del i vores frihed og tryghed? Det er jo absurd og decideret udansk. Vi har jo netop en pligt som et "frit land" at tage imod mennesker der flygter fra undertrykkelse og gi' dem den tryghed.

Man kan nærmest sammenligne denne holdning med den som Danmark udviste under Anden Verdens Krig. Vi valgte at samarbejde med besættelses magten og lukke øjnene for hvad det medførte. Gudskelov valgte nogle enkelte at gøre modstand mod besættelses magten, personer vi idag har glorificeret som "helte," men som den gang ikke modtog helt den samme anerkendelse af regeringen, tværtimod.

Ulver.

The Ulver concert last weekend was by far the strangest concert I've ever attended. Not to say it wasn't as great as I expected, because it was. They played perfectly and beyond my imagination and high expectations. Especially when keeping in mind that they haven't played live for 15 years or so. The set list was everything I could've hoped for, presenting a good variety of their songs; though none of their earliest songs were played.



Garm looked uncomfortable from start to finish and seemed to be either slightly pissed off or annoyed with something. Maybe it was because there weren't that many people in the crowd. Maybe because of the dumb-asses that wouldn't shut up during the quieter parts of the set. Maybe it was simply because of their inexperience playing to a crowd. Or maybe he was in need of a well overdue cigarette, I don't know. it didn't affect his performance one bit, though. You sure couldn't tell that he's only reasonably started singing live, but his odd presence gave the entire concert that strange feeling. However, speaking for myself, that strangeness along with the music and incredible VJ'ing only enhanced the mystery of Ulver, which had me ending up thinking it was intended.

I suppose my own excitement about seeing these guys was a factor that played in as well. I have been big a fan since I discovered their album "The Marriage Of Heaven & Hell". I was overwhelmed when they played the first song and by the end of the concert in complete awe.



The rest of the band did a phenomenal job as well, and were a little less gloomy then Garm. Daniel O'Sullivan on guitar, bass and piano was fucking incredible! That man got skills.

The sound at the venue was okay. No more, no less. There were some technical problems with the vocals at one point, but nothing serious. All in all I couldn't have hoped for a better place for them to play, I just wish the main part of the crowd had enough respect for the band and the rest of us not to chatter durning the concert.


Set list (beside the order I'm fairly sure it's correct):

Eons
Let The Children Go
Little Blue Bird / Rock Massif Pt. 1
For The Love Of God
In The Red
Operator???
Funcbrae
part of Silence Teaches You How To Sin ???
Plates 16-17
Hallways Of Allways
Porn Piece Or The Scars Of Cold Kisses???
Like Music???
Not Saved

I wish I had more time, or rather the "right kind of time" to to make music in, but then again hobbies don't have deadlines - I'm not obligated to deliver anything to anyone within a specific time frame. I'd probably go nuts if I was a professional musician and had labels breathing down my neck, demanding I'd make something for them to sell. I can easily understand why a lot of big musicians fall into some kind of substance abuse.
Though, I would be lying if I said I'm not just a little jealous of them.

Profil of a Dreamer

Wears a halo that doesn't fit
Shoes that can't keep out the rain
A scarf tied in a noose
Glasses that blinds

Wears his heart on his sleeve
Playing an out of tune guitar
& a piano that's synthesized

God & Satan are my enemies
Along with their Angels and Demons

Is not Red or Blue
Sees only in grey tone
But dreams in color

Lost the heart that loves
Along with the girl who stole it
Both now somewhere in the New World

Almost 4 Years Later...

... I find this blog. Like a personal time-capsule, a letter to my future self, giving me insight to the person I was almost 4 years ago. Going through it brings back a lot of memories, which is why I decided to start writing here again; to leave a donkey ear in time for me to find again, like I did tonight, and hopefully bring back memories of the present me to the future me, like I did tonight.

I remember a lot of what I've written here, but an equal amount I had no idea I had ever written. It's a strange thing that you can write something only to completely forget it, but I guess that's kind of the point, isn't it? You write it down, so you don't have to remember and then when you read it remember again. The good, the bad, the fun, the sad and so on.

So almost 4 years has past, and here I am: a completely different person from who I was back then. I wish I could say I had become wiser, more stable and content with myself, but that would be lying to myself. Then again maybe I have, just a little, so I hope at least. My music has, so maybe I have too. Can an unstable person make stable music? And what the fuck is stable music? Boring music. I don't think it's boring, which answers my own question...

While on the subject of music, I don't think I made music 4 years ago. Sure I played a few instruments, but I don't think I composed new music, and that seems strange to me. Of course there has to be a start with everything, I mean you obviously can't come out of the womb and start writing a novel, and even in that ridiculous scenario there's a start.
So that's a significant change in my life that's happen within those 4 years. The other significant change (if not the most significant) has to be the people whom I've met and gotten to know through these 4 year, particularly three persons.

If I remember correctly, and having found this blog and all the memories attached to it, I think I do, I lost the only two friends I truly considered friends, a short time before or after the last entry of this blog. The term "friend" is not one I throw around loosely, doing so has gotten me into a lot of not-worth-mentioning-no-good, but it's one that I can put K & D in. I don't want to go into details, but they left and we soon lost contact. K & D obviously weren't the only two people I had around me, I spend a lot of time with several different groups and people, but I never fully trusted any of them.
To my luck, over the course of roughly a year I got to know these three, whom I today consider friends, and don't see losing any time soon. They mean a lot to me, more then I think they realize.

I still live were I did 4 years ago; alone on DKgade. My love life has only gotten worse since my last entry. I'm not blaming her, but it's only gone downhill since K left. There was one person I had a brief, "relationship" isn't the word I'm looking for, but it's not a wrong word to describe what we had, however brief it was. She was the last, and I miss it; not so much her, but the general love part. I don't know why or how, but I've lost that little confidence I had to have a relationship. Something I need to work on if I don't want to end up a loveless old bastard, which I don't, who does?

And with that I'm back to blogging again. I already feel better. I've completely forgot how good it feels to get rid of my thoughts - or rather store them away for the future.

Ungdomshuset Eviction Trailer

Help!

...

I wonder if any one actually reads these rambling of mine.

...?

?

The Little Match Girl.

I just got home from watching the theatre show, The Little Match Girl by The Tiger Lillies. I had the best seats ever, I could've held the microphones for them, I was that close.

It was something, that's for sure.
It was great too.
No, it was more then great.
It was really something...

The story - should you not know - is about a little girl who sells matches, but one new years eve the cold gets too much for her, so she strikes and lights the few matches she have to keep her warm. The warmth from the matches gives her hallucinations of all sorts of wonderful things. Her dead grandmother, amongst other things. But the matches isn't enough and she ends up freezing to death out on the cold streets.

Knowing The Tiger Lillies, I didn't know what to expect, you never can with these guys. The show wasn't exactly what I had expected - the music was the good ol' sound of the tiger lillies - it was much more. It wasn't the crazy, funny, dark comedy they usually come up with, no, it was sad and I even heard a girl say after the show that it scared her a lot.
The Tiger Lillies did a great job as always, but even they were matched by the two actors, the girl especially. She is a great actor - she's so much more then just an actor.

If you have the chance, go see the show, even if you don't normally like the Lillies. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

A Picture And Some Words.

This was me:

This is me:

...?

Dreamers,

Am I alone? I feel alone...

The world today is not an easy place for dreamers, believe me. I don't know about you, but being the silly dreamer that I am, I feel very lost in this frantic age. It's hard not to give in, follow the path that lays so straight on a head. I don't want to go straight, dammit! I want to take curves, loops, take wildcards, go nowhere!
I can't possibly be the only one; the only one left, it would be absurd to think like that, but sometimes I can't help it,everyone around me seems to be on that straight path.

Whatever happened to spontaneity? Whatever happened to "having dreams"? Whatever happened to following them? What happened to love?

I think the majority of people when reaching a certain age lose that part of them, the dreaming part, maybe that's what "growing up" is. I don't know, it hasn't happened to me... yet. And that's my greatest fear, I suppose. Losing that part; face reality.

I'm tired. I'm tired of it all. All I want is pease, time and love. Is that so much to ask for? I guess it is. But I don't care, I want it anyway.

-Mike

House.

Sitting here in my lovely chair, the fairy in my hand and music in the air , everything seems so fucking idyllic. Maybe it's just the my green friend talking.

I found a house. I want that house. It's cheap! It's falling apart, but it's cheap! I've been looking at that house for months, and now it's for sell. It's right smack down in the center of the city, but still very peaceful - well, it's right next to an old church and grave yard, which is another reason why I like it. Looking at it from the outside can really mess with your sense of balance, let's just say it's very uneven. It was built in 1877, which would explain it's state. I don't mind, it's state is what I find so appealing.

Dreams. Nothing, but silly dreams so far... but, who knows...

Took a picture:

I'm not drunk.

-Mike

"One Day There Was A Tree."

"What happened here? What's this I feel? A tree? But how; why?" Never had he heard of such a thing being possible, and certainly never thought it'd occur to him of all people.

It's the big things that's trivial, and the little things that's unique.

On top of the tree was a flower, the only flower on the tree. It had the darkest purple color you've ever seen, in fact, such a color never existed before this flower sprung out on top of the tree.

You don't know what you have before it's gone, and by then, it's too late.

He had gone to bed the night before like he always did, nothing was different from any other night, except for the waking in the morning finding a tree.

The man didn't know what to do...

His life was a mess before the "event" occurred; his wife had just left him, they'd been married for less then a year. He lost his job too. Everything was crumbling beneath him, and he did nothing to stop it. There wasn't anything to do. He started drinking.

The busy bee has no time for sorrows.

Suddenly the tree started to grow even larger. He could feel it's roots hugging his brain; a feeling unlike any other. Leaves turned brown and feel off. Soon all the leaves were gone. Nothing, but the flower un the top was left.

...

Two hours later he was found dead. The tree sawed off at the root; at his scalp.

"Hello. I love you. Won't you tell me your name?"

There's this girl that started working were I work. I can't say why, but I love her. I know nothing about her, absolutely nothing, I'm not even sure what her name is. I get these feelings about certain people I meet, an enhanced first impression sort of thing; a sixth sense if you will, nine out of ten times the impretion is correct.

I love her.

I've talked to her, a little, just small comments, nothing special. What I'd really like to tell her is, "Hello. I love you. Won't you tell me your name?", but it seems too strange a thing to do, she'd think I was mad - I am, but that's another subject.

I wished she'd work with me. You see I stand at a machine with another guy which I'm learning to operate the thing, she stands at an entirely different machine down in the other end of the hall. And she's not employded, she's just working as a "substitute worker" - she doesn't look like someone who'd work there either, which, I guess, is one of the reasons why I like her. Technically she could be gone on monday. I hope my boss will place her down with me and my machine, or atleast the machine next to mine, then I can talk to her without it being too out of place, just long enough to get to know her.

It's not that I love her in a "please be the mother of my child" kinda way - not that I want chirldren, certainly not now - but she's just my kind of person, but how I know nothing about her, she could be - God forbid - religious. The fact is I don't know, I just know I love her.

She's so cute, it's unnormal.

Strange... now I can't wait to go to work, something I thought would never happen...

"Hello. I love you..."

-Mike

26/06/05

You'd think things get easier when they turn into routine. They don't.

I don't know if I'm just abnormal, but if I don't love what I'm doing, and I mean really love, then it just doesn't seem worthy of my attention for that long a time. Obviously I continue doing it, I need the money to go one living, but why can't I just do what I love and go one living?

That's how it's been since I started this new job. I want to entertain, play my violin, juggle and do various other things. So what's holding me back then? Fear of failure, I suppose.

I really shouldn't be complaining, I'm doing very well apart from the above. I got plenty of money; I plan on traveling soon; See Cirque du Soleil (yes, that's high on the list). I'm doing very well, yes. So I keep telling myself...

I've been reading a lot lately. Haruki Murakami is amazing for lack of better words - words can't begin to comprehend how amazing he is, except maybe his own words. Read "Sleep" and wow! The pictures that man can create in my head with his words are truely - here we go again - amazing.

Speaking of "amazing". I just got my two Cirque du Soleil DVD's. I got home from work and there they were, laying on the kitchen table in a brown letter-shaped bubble rapped box.

I first saw Quidam as a kid in TV, I must've ten or something, and I was breathtaken. The music, the artist, the whole was just... amazing.

And now, last night, I saw it for the second time, Quidam and Varekai - which unbelievable beautiful, also. It was like finding a treasure from your childhood, a treasure you thought was long gone. I loved every second of it, just thinking of it makes me want to see it again.

The day I see Cirque du Soleil live, will be the day I'll see again.

-Mike

Frog Juice Arrived!

Ohh you green beauty, finally we're together again. I've missed you, my love!

Will you take my hand, take me to that special place of ours, away from this cold present?

Of course you will! You always have!

Drink, mon brave! Drink with me!

No "Me-time?"

Nope. No "me-time!"

Haven't made a post here for a while...
So this is what work does to you. Hmm...

Still sorting empty bottles, still fun as hell.

NEED FROG JUICE! NOW!
Should be here next week. Too long...

Money, money, money, money, money and more money.

If you don't make any money your nothing!

I kinda liked being "nothing," but when everybody has this obsession with money it's kinda hard not to tag along. Not that I actually did it by my own will, nah, the government would so like me to sort empty bottles, - that's my new job - fun huh?

Today I decided to go on a little trip to the almighty town that is Horsens. Trip might not be the word to describe it as I can walk from where I live and be in the center of Horsens in less than an hour. Anywho, I was on my "trip" - yes I am/was - and I wandered around and suddenly there I was there, where I've been a hundred other times, yet it was different, maybe I hadn't been there since that time, yes, maybe that's it. But there I was wandering down the most beautiful old alley and it was then, there, and here, I stopped and said outloud to myself - I do that some times, ok I do it a lot - "this is it, this is where "Le Chat Verte" will be placed."

"Le Chat Verte" is a dream, no, a vision - sounds much better - of mine. It's a Cafè, a hideout from the busy world, a place to unwind, read a book, a bohemian-goth-circus-gypsy-belle epoque cafè, a place for all the weirdoes. Not only that, but I will start the first and for now only distribution of quality absinthe in Denmark.

It's built in my head, everything is sorted out, well almost everything, I need - that's right - money! Once again money is an issue.
God I hate 'em, not that I don't love 'em either.

-Mike