The Airportline: Observations

The days between the Christmas munchies and New Years decadence is often spent with reading. At least in my family. As I am currently covered in Snow in Sweden I am surrounding myself with words. There are newspaper piles on all the tables, except for when my mom does one of her feared cleaning sweeps and suddenly make them disappear ('I thought you had already read it', her usual explanation for suddenly trashing tonnes of words that never caught my eyes) or when my dad burns some of them while lighting the fire place. Here are two columns and one blog post you should rest your eyes on during these days if you are in need:

1. Marina Hyde's hilarious The Guardian column: 1, Beckham. 2, Murdoch. 3, Britney's ex. Will this do for my list of the noughties?

She takes on the list obsessed media and manages to both pinpoint both a sad media development and what it says about our time. It's a bit similar to the corporate world where everything that can be put into numbers automatically is seen as something of value.

2. Joshua Bearman's International Herald Trubune story My half-bakes bubble

Where he manages to describe the root of the financial crisis with a very funny story about him selling cake futures during lunch break in school. Worth a read even if you have no interest in contemporary economic policy and a must if you do have an interest in it.

3 The Fader music blog's Listmania

A must for every music nerd and, among many other great things, includes this list concerning one of Airportline's absolute favourite bands this year, Girls:

Top Five Lyrics That Prove That Christopher Owens of Girls is a Modern Day Byron, Too Earnest to Be a Modern Day Don Juan, Just a Simple Man with Regular Desires and No Need or Understanding of How to Quell, Mask or Spurn What he Truly Wants
5. Lay in the park, smoke in the dark/ Get high like I used to do/ Summertime soak up the sunshine with you
4. No, I’m never gonna fix up and i might me crazy/ But I’ve really got it goin’ on
3. I’ve got an ice cream cone, and I’m feeling fine tonight/ And when I get you back home, oh you know I’m gonna do you right, oh yeah
2. I’ve got a sad song in my sweet heart/ And all I really ever need is some love and attention
1. Let’s be the people that we want to be/ Let’s live like we could never part

http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/2454

Airportline is in Sweden. Next to me my sister is wrapping presents and the scent of freshly baked scones is still lingering in the air from the morning. We are listening to this pretty Christmas song from Sufjan Stevens epic 5-cd 'Songs For Christmas', as suggested by Swedish music journalist Kristin Lundell. Winter is all around and yesterday I sat in an airplane in Copenhagen in a snowstorm, waiting for a Thai Airways airplane to be de-iced while finishing the last pages of Amos Oz Black Box, admiring his personal portraits. Or how about this apt description a few pages from the end of the novel:

'A slightly stooping, balding man, with fine skin; his appearance reminds me of a Scandinavian village pastor, on his face a strange mixture of mortification, meditation, and irony, his shoulders sloping downward, his back bony and stiff. Only the grey eyes seem cloudy and damp, like the eyes of a confirmed alcoholic'

From the Airportline crew we wish you a Merry Christmas and we will be back after the celebrations with more observations from the world.

As the rest of the Dutch population made normal snow men, or in some instances snow dogs, they set their sights higher. It was an early Sunday morning when they met at the south entrance of Vondelpark. They spend the first few hours smoking and making drawings. Dutch families made circles around them with their snow hungry kids and functional strollers. After a few hours of preparation they began working on their giant snow man. Since many of them had not attended their biology classes their snow man did not have the ball shape structure of ordinary snow men, or the more straight structure of a real man. Instead it turned out looking more like an over sized object school children could practice putting on a condom on. When I told this to the architects they immediately tried to strangle me with the snowman’s scarf. I retracted my statement and choose to view its creative and aspirational qualities instead. After hours of hard labor, always accompanied by several professionally rolled joints, the builders were finally ready to show of their work as the sun slowly began to set over the snow covered trees. Cameras surrounded the young men as they proudly posed next to their giant creation. It was the proudest moment of their life, their own moon landing, their own Eiffel Tower. It was only a few days until Christmas but these tenacious construction workers showed that even a few days before the big day of giving, a giant snow man in the shape of a dildo can be provided for free to an appreciative public. There is nothing like giving a giant snow man to the people of Amsterdam, the architects concluded, before leaving the park and the snowman to its own devices.

Airportline is listening to the new Fanfarlo album Reservoir (beautiful) while the cars and bikes slide around on the snowy streets of our now white city. Took a walk in Vondelpark earlier and the amount of snowmen (and one snow dog!) that Dutch people produced was highly impressive. No matter where I turned snowmen were parading the snow covered lawns and park areas. Then I went and drank some Glögg and had som pepparkakor, both highly Swedish Christmas things. We are now getting mentally ready to once again travel north: the editorial board will be flying to Göteborg this coming Tuesday.

As I told you on Friday Airportline's guerrilla advertising campaign has now hit the streets of Princeton, USA where we dominated the news and also went looking inside a bronze Tiger. We expect our readership consisting of bronze statue lovers and academics to sky rocket during the coming years, so make sure to spread this around to your friends, and foes. The guerrilla advertising scheme will continue and if you would like to participate in this global quest for recognition please leave a comment or send me an email and I will provide further instructions.

After a week of some technical issues and me trying to distance myself from my lap top a bit Airportline will now be up and running again, as you might notice (unless you consistently attend this website on strong hallucinogenic drugs, which by the way, we in secret would applaud) the layout has been changed again. This was a necessary thing to do since my Finnish technical advisor, and Dutch national floorball team member, informed me that my previous template was not finished. This meant that the Airtportline empire considered starting some serious internet warfare, but, since we don't know how to fight a war in real life, or on line (we blame Sweden), we decided to sit and grunt instead.

After this grunting period we finally decided that unfinished templates is nothing for Airportline, thus, we were forced to take a journey into the wild (a.k.a. Google) in order to find a new design which would not dent out already fragile financial situation. After displaying some amazing google skills we found this template, and since I have heard very few comments about this, except 'more black = good' we will keep this for a while.

Tomorrow we will finally present the second leg on the guerrilla advertising campaign that was started to great applauds during the spring in Paris. One of our esteemed US correspondents has met some tigers and newspaper-stands in the US academic headquarters of Princeton. I smell some tweed!

Before that click play on the video and listen to one of the best remixes I've heard this year. Troublemaker pull of a perfect combination of the Matt & Kim slacker anthem Daylight pared with hip hop giants De La Soul.

After problems with the comment section work is being performed. A new layout might be on the cards. When we return to normal we have US guerrilla advertising, fantastic pop and some other goodies for you.

It seems as if nudity has gotten some kind of revival in popular culture lately. I am not sure why this is the case. Perhaps its all that normative conservatism that is floating around in the political sphere that is making people revolt, or maybe its just an extreme way of showing yourself off when comedic Facebook status updates or Youtube videos of a sleep walking dogs running into a wall is no longer enough? White bony indie musicians seem to have an especial interest in doing this and I personally have no real issue with it, although when it is sold in a music video I always get the feeling that they are trying to cover up the fact that the music maybe isn't that interesting without nudity. The Brooklyn duo Matt & Kim did pull the combination of good music and interesting nudity by throwing their clothes of in New York's Times Square to the tune of their very pretty melodic song Lessons Learned.

So, last Wednesday I went to a conference about sex. I told you I would report something about this, but as you know: I never do what I say I will in this blog. But our esteemed Airportline contributor from the Oil drinking nation of Norway felt that this was a great waste and took it upon her to explain what exactly went on there before that morning coffee and all those free drinks we had afterwards. So: this is what we learned:

Dr. Ken Kraaijeveld
Explained that in asexual mating all individuals are female. They get a lot more offspring, but since they reproduce through cloning there's not too much genetic variation and they are reliant on mutations to adapt to new environments. (Airportline does not really understand this)

So, while sexual reproduction yields fewer offspring, and provides a now sexual selection on both genders (fastest sperm, most attractive egg (Airportline finds the idea of attractive eggs very comedic), but also less depressive results, like clever females), it is the best and most sustainable evolutionary way of reproduce, because it combines genomes from different individuals and thus we have more variations in a population, which in return provide more protection against parasites. Ok, that sentence was ridiculously long, sorry. But this is especially reflected in our complex immune system, and it is believed that attraction between humans might be based on a search for mates with a different immune system than yours to make super-babies in the battle against pathogens. (Airportline: what?!)

What have we learned? If you must reproduce asexually, you should be tiny, i.e. unicellular, like bacteria, so that your generation time is minimal, and mutation rates should be high. However, if you want to become a complex multicellular being, sex is the way to go. Fewer offspring, but more invested in them.

Dr. Ellen Laan
Argued that there are 237 reasons for humans to have sex. i.e. it's not just for reproduction. The main reasons listed for men and women are similar (1. pleasure 2. Love and commitment 3. Experience searching).

(Airtportline was impressed that she quoted Woody Allen early in this lecture: ‘masturbation is sex with someone I love’ being the memorable line she used when she discussed the definition of sex)

However, the parental investment theory says that the gender contributing most energy and resources to the offspring should be more choosy in picking a mate. In most mammals, incl humans, this is the female, since we're going through 9 months of carrying a bowling ball in our uterus and need to feed it from our glands for at least some months after birth (WHICH IS LETHAL AND COMPLETELY INSANE WHEN YOU THINK OF IT). In that case women should be better than men at controlling their sexual response, such as mentally turning the sex drive off after getting turned on, but in her research she didn't find any empirical evidence for this (remember, the chair, the vibrator and the erotic movie-experiment?). Rather, men were better at controlling this.

She also said that the main reason that post-menopausal women experience a lower sex drive and a bad sex life is not hormonal, bur rather dependent on the state of their sexual state prior to menopause. So, an exchange of partner might be better than taking hormones. Haha (Norway oil drinking laugh)

Dr. Tristham Wyatt
THE PURPLE VELVET SUIT!!! (Airportline ads that he was wearing a highly impressive suit which I almost asked him about after three beers and four bitterballens)

Success of the smelliest? Pheromones drive sexual selection in many many phyla. this has been widely accepted for insects since 1959 (MOTHS!) but now we know that pheromonal attraction occurs also among higher mammals, and the elephant's pheromone consists of the same as the moths'. (so, why don't moths fly and try to mate with an elephant? because the composition is different in the different species!)

- Pheromones is not correct greek (or was it latin..?), it should be pheroromones, but that's ridiculous. (Airportline ads that this actually was a very funny joke, but maybe not so much in writing)

-Being smelly also means being easily discovered by enemies that want to eat you. Being smelly AND ALIVE sends signals to the females that your super-genes allow you to be super-quick in escaping from predators, or very strong etc..it's called honest signalling of good genes cause it gives the males a handicap they have to overcome, and it's very sexy for females. The classical example is the peacock's tail-feathers, which is highly conspicuous. Males with a poor gene-combination could never get away with that kind of ornament, they would be dinner.

Dr. Julie Bakker
Ok she was not so interesting but i noted that sex differences is also present in monkeys when it comes to preferring human gender-based toys.
Dr. Eva Becher
I fell asleep. twice. and drew a picture of a face on the note page. (Airportline also fell asleep, and then drew strange shapes that in no way resembles Picasso's Guernica.)

Dr. Rob Knell
He speculated whether resistance to STDs would function as honest handicaps (see above). Thing is, STDs are pathogens, often viruses attacking us just like other viruses, but exploit our reproductive strategies to spread themselves to new hosts. However, humans on the other side would not wish to have an STD so we should have evolved ways to discover which individuals are infected by these diseases and avoid them. So why do 50% of promiscuous Scandinavians have chlamydia (yes, it is an epidemic. yes, one should get tested!)?

Thing is, for a pathogen, the goal is NOT to destroy its host. The human body functions as their habitat, just like we exploit the resources from our habitat. First thing they should learn, and it seems like they're better than humans at this, is to apply SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. Exploiting their hosts' resources all at once and killing it off is not very good, cause where do they go from there? I.e. strains of pathogens that destroyed their hosts quickly also died at the same time, and since the STD's are dependent on keeping their host still sexually attractive for their own spreading, their should evolve to become less virulent by time. Like syphilis.

So, therefore, we have not evolved detection of potential mates with STDs. STDs may be annoying, painful and shameful but not to the degree that humans stop reproducing. They're like the cold-virus, dependent of their host coughing at strangers to spread, and so keeping their host chained to their bed is not very good for them.

Airportline wants to thank our special biology expert and sporadic blogger for this detailed report from a nice conference day.

The Quote:
'Is it a dream, is it a lie, I think I'll let your decide' - Arcade Fire - Power Out

The Video:
If you think a music video should contain the same kind of American realism, coupled with the imaginary and absurd that made Magnolia into such a special movie, this video with Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg is something for you.

The bridge:
Our Dublin correspondent informs us that the Samuel Beckett bridge opened yesterday in Dublin. Looks very similar to the Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam.

The word:
Continuous Partial Attention coined by Linda Stone in 1998 and describe the fact that many people never focus on only one thing, instead we multi task and sleep with our phones and always have our laptops so that we can chat with friends and what not.

'Continuous partial attention describes how many of us use our attention today. It is different from multi-tasking. The two are differentiated by the impulse that motivates them. When we multi-task, we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient. We're often doing things that are automatic, that require very little cognitive processing. We give the same priority to much of what we do when we multi-task — we file and copy papers, talk on the phone, eat lunch -- we get as many things done at one time as we possibly can in order to make more time for ourselves and in order to be more efficient and more productive. To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment. To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized, and to matter.' from Wikipedia

You leave the training with your sweaty hair folded into your second hand hat. You bike and the wind slaps your sweaty face when you pass the Amstel river, its yellow light laughing at you and your tired body as you push yourself towards what now feels like the possibility of infinite sins. In your ipod Grinderman cuts your ears with dirty blues rock and aggressive guitars that sound like an industrial meltdown. You press your fingers harder against your handlebars, you see red traffic lights but you pay no attention, you go straight to the beat of a drum, beating in the tune of insanity. 'I drink a liter of cognac and threw her down on the bed' Nick Cave yells and you pass by the green and red Christmas lights and the expensive stores of Hoofdweg. You give the now deserted street that is paved with meaningless personal wealth the finger in your mind. You can't let go of your handlebars, you don't trust the effect it might have.

'I got the no pussy blues' rolls over you over and over without any breathing space. All that is left is the wind gusting against your every push on the pedal. But you pay no attention as you pass a tram with boring people in their boring lives as you cross Overtoom. You are out in the wind and darkness and Nick Cave is yelling No Pussy Blues in your ears. Your legs hurt but you keep pedaling up over bridges where the peaceful canals turn into evil fountains when Nick Cave crawl around in your head with his band and his deperation which he wears better than anyone else. You turn on to Kinkerstraat and the Christmas lights are tacky, No Pussy Blues keeps parading down you veins and it is not until you lock your bike in front of the drug dealers, and remove your hat that you return to the real world again. Suddenly the canals look peaceful and you loose your need to throw your finger against anyone, that is, before you push play again.

Do you remember when Christ Anderson came out with The Long Tail and predicted the end of the 'Block Buster culture'? People were suppose to go from mainstream culture to more specialized books, movies, music etc. that were more in tuned with their own needs and preferences. Of course you remember, well, turns out that this is not really happening, not in the way anticipated anyway. In a great exposé of modern media consumption the Economist analyzed what is happening in the world of books, news, music and film and came back with the conclusions that hits sell better than ever, and have a greater market share than ever. Nishé movies and music also do better then before, thus not totally busting the Long Tail theory. Everything in between is struggling, from medium sized newspapers who've seen their classified ads collapse, to musicians with a young fan base not buying albums anymore, the business of popular culture is relying more and more on big hits. And maybe Peter Cherning, who recently stepped down from a role overseeing the film and television business at News Corp, is right when he says that 'Hits are going to be the single biggest beneficiary of technology'. The Airportline thinks that this is a sad prospect. For those of you interested in contemporary media consumption I highly recommend this long but very informative article.

I am occupied with different tasks, so today I will give the word to F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, and famously made fun in A Movable Feast by Ernest Hemingway for his weak tolerance for alcohol. The following quote was sent to me a few weeks ago and although I am sure many of you have read it, it deserves to be read again, cause it is beautifully written and based on an idea that I myself try and adhere to the best I can, namely, not judging people. So, while I continue to destroy my head and shoulders with some tedious tasks I give you part of the first page from The Great Gatsby:

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

Tomorrow Airportline will attend a conference called 'Sex, an evolutionary success story'. If I learn something I will let you know.

HELLO IT'S Noko Jeans! from Noko Jeans on Vimeo.

...is an interesting part of the Euronews newscast, and now unfortunately also the definition of the comment section on my blog. I know this is not because non of you have anything to say, instead it is a technical problem which I will try and have a look at during the week. However, my technical expertise is admittedly limited so who knows how long this might take. Until this happens enjoy the design and keep your thoughts to yourself, and if you have urgent things to report or complain about or celebrate or whatever, you will find me at hypotetisk@hotmail.com. I do apologize for this little mishap!

Over to something more interesting. Swedish jeans label Noko hit the headlines last week when they unveiled their new jeans, produced in the tourist paradise of... yes... let it come to you... North Korea! With a video (see above) that hits every storytelling idea in the marketing world they had a glorious aim to try and maybe open up the country a bit. And what better way to lead a country towards democracy that to produce some super limited trendy jeans? Unless the trendy Stockholm fashion house PUB would not have stopped the brand they day after its launch (since they did not want to sell jeans from a country where jeans are illegal, since it is seen as a symbol for American imperialism, and working conditions generally are famously poor) it could have been Panda Diplomacy 2.0. Now its just another example of the power of marketing (even I am writing about it!) and both The Guardian and The New York Times have taken notice.

Phoenix - 1901 - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

In a recent interview one of the guitarists in Phoenix explained the band's home town, Versailles, as 'very beautiful and very boring'. Boredom of course occasionally bring great creativity and Phoenix is certainly a great example of this. With their love for R&B, soul and funk and their way of fusing these influences with guitar indie, and on their latest album, a flirt with a more electronic side, the band has risen to well deserved fame. Airportline has been a great fan of this band ever since they had a song in the movie Lost In Translation and I saw them pull of a fantastic show in the hipster heaven of Amsterdam's Trouw this past spring.

However, when I was in Paris last year no one seemed to know about them, hopefully that has changed now. It is still interesting to follow the band around Paris where they performed a few songs (with the acoustic version of One Time Too Many on a tourist bus being my favorite) from the best musicvideoblog around: La Blogotheque. Vincent Moon has once again produced some classic music moments (note the married couple in the 1901 video!) to add to his long list of great videos. Airportline's favourite before was the apartment show with Yeasayer and the street performance with Beirut. Both magnificent.

Phoenix - Lizstomania / One time too many - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Phoenix - Long distance call - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I just needed a change. Let me know if something looks weird to you (not including the fact that my most listened to artist last week was Simon & Garfunkel). You Mac people were complaining about the text layout before, is this better for your little fashionista machines or are there still issues?

I saw Whatever Works, Woody Allen’s latest movie, yesterday. The reviews have been mixed, both from friends and trusted writers. And even though it had its funny sides, and gave New York the great look it always gets from the eye of Woody, with its grand apartments, outdoor lunches and general visual pleasantness, it fails to reach high enough both regarding the comedy and acting. In the middle of the story an old Nobel price nominee with a death wish, played by Larry David, walks around. The story revolves on around the theme of luck and chance and portrays New York as the intellectual haven that can even make conservative swamp idiots into successful sexually liberated artists. People fall into each others lives, fall in love and out of love and turn gay and yeah, Woody made sure to press in so many parallel lives and stories in one and a half hours it is no wonder that it leaves you feeling a bit cheated. With so much life drama the characters never become more than comedic staples to turn the never stopping plot from racing through relationships and people as a normal Woody Allen movie on crack.

Even though its a nice movie I lack the emotional intenseness, the complex relationships and the characters in Woody’s best works. This is of course intended to be a light comedy, but it feels a bit rushed, a bit too loose and comfortable, and even though Larry David fits the bill as some kind of complaining Jewish math genius, his lack of any emotional engagement becomes tiring in the long run and feels misplaced and simplified when it suddenly arrives. While I would like to like this movie it simply reminded me of previous great Woody movies, but unfortunately it never managed to step out from the shade of its older cousins. Like ‘A O Scott’ (what kind of name is that?!) wrote in The New York Times:
‘Mr. Allen’s imagination has returned to Manhattan after that invigorating European sojourn afflicted by an extreme case of jet lag.’

A friend of mine had an operation in his head last Friday. Not that serious, he reassured in an email. But still. This is a song for you David, I hope all went well and that you are recovering nicely, this song might help you on the way, if you need to release some endorphins.

Shout Out Louds is an important band in my music upbringing. It was the first band I ever interviewed in person (the base player sat in dog poop when we sat down in a backstage area at the Arvika Music Festival) and their first EP, 100 degrees, and following single Shut Your Eyes are so overplayed that they barely hold together in my CD shelve back in Sweden. After two albums they are now gearing up to their third offering and a little nibble of a taste is avaliable right now with their new single Walls which you can see here above. Very nice video, and even though I'm not that found of the unmelodic intro, the song develops into a classic Shout Out Louds pop gem that eventually finds the band throwing themselves into all that desperation and The Cure pop they did so well on earlier songs like Tonight I Have To Leave It and Very Loud. The Airportline welcomes one of its favorite band back into the limelight. Go here to download the song for free

Noah And The Whale – First Day Of Spring (Mercury)

Broken love, a broken heart and broken dreams are fundamental concepts in human existence. They are emotional states that fill our best art with emotions because they are the core emotions in life. I think Noah and The Whale singer Charlie Fink is very aware of this. He is not afraid to state the obvious, to dress his songs up in clichés and simplistic descriptions of a broken heart. He knows it’s not about what you say but how you say it. He does occasionally put it beautifully also lyrically, he does, but as a listener you need not to be too concerned with some perhaps less novel descriptions of heartache. Noah and The Whale approached the need for love through beautiful orchestrations and a light-hearted melodies already on their surprisingly over looked folk pop debut album Peaceful The World Lays Me Down. These are feelings we all know but writing about them have proven to be difficult for many artist. There are those who claim that also Noah and the Whale can’t do this. I believe that these people are misguided and outright wrong. But as this is a matter of love and not hate I will not indulge in mudslinging. The topics Noah and The Whale circle around as heart breaking vulchers is how to move on from a broken relationship. It’s a magnifying glass into the feelings that this inevitably sad event so often lead to. This kind of albums often tend to become too navel gazing, too enforced, and too dramatically pompous. But when it is done with honesty, the most important ingredient in art that so many seem to forget, it can also catch you off guard, make you re-evaluate, think about things, and maybe face some truths that you were too afraid to face before. When art can hold your hand in these moments it can have both devastating and exhilarating effects.

I’ve talked a lot about Noah and The Whale since I heard their debut album and argued that it was one of the finest album of 2008. I always struggled to explain what it exactly was that made this London folk orchestra, who previously wore ridiculous colorful hipster wear, special. What made them hit my heart over and over while my surroundings shook their shoulders and moved on to something different. It can be frustrating to hear something that touches your soul while other people are unmoved. But I kept pedaling my bike over the Amstel river with Charlie Fink proclaiming that ‘if you give a little love you can get a little love of your own’ over piano and hand claps in Give a Little Love and thought that it was magical every time.

Perhaps it is my genuine interest for lost love and loneliness that immediately hit me when I listen to Noah and The Whale. Fans of Jens Lekman will recognize the upfront lyrics and the sincerity that I find rare among young Londoners. Its unfortunate that their colorful clothes and the, in indie circles, well covered relationship breakdown between Charlie Fink and Laura Marlin took focus from the bands music. When Laura went of on her own, becoming the poster girl for the new London folk movement with her pretty but ultimately somewhat disappointing (I know there are people that do not agree with this statement) debut Alas I Cannot Swim people assumed that Noah And The Whale would amount to nothing without her. Instead the vocalist break-up pushed the bands music into something much darker and emotionally engaging than before. At first glance it was quite a big step, but if you keep your eyes close to the lyrics you will still recognise the themes and sounds from their debut. Outstanding songs on the debut album such as Give A Little Love and Hold My Hand As I’m Lowered already touched the theme of lost love which on their 2009 output The First Days Of Spring bloomed into a haunting and captivating journey through the effects of love.

The First Days of Spring is an album that hurts to listen to, from the slow starting The First Say Of Spring, with its build up and crescendo end, to the album closing song, My Door Is Always Open, the band takes a long and sparsely orchestrated ride into a landscape that from time to time beat with some hope but ultimately still is in knee deep in mourning. The fluctuating emotional states occasionally becomes angry, occasionally filled with a feeling that it was for the best, occasionally portraying the feeling loneliness, and other times drawing a line and moving on. It is like looking into a journal where someone has written down his thoughts without editing, without hiding his emotions in distancing metaphors.

‘and its been a while since I starred at the stars’ Fink sings over a lonely guitar and sparse piano keys in Our Window as the world looks different while reflected in a lost promise. In stand out track Blue Skies Fink starts out boldly stating that ‘this is a song for anyone with a broken heart’. I’ve sent it to friends who have understood just how he feels. ‘This is the last song I will write while you’re even on my mind’ he continues as the song develops into an anthem celebrating the forward motion that life always needs to have. Like Alvy Singer says in Woody Allen’s master peace Annie Hall, ‘relationships are like sharks, they have to keep moving forward otherwise they’ll die’.

I’ve been surprised in my own life of the heavy impact, and the brutal loneliness that can come out of the end of a relationship. There are many artists that try and put these feelings into the music they make. But while so many choose to write about these feelings through metaphors or poetic verse Noah And The Whale goes straight on the pure emotions, and combines this with Charlie Finks voice that sounds like its been frozen in that exact moment when a relationship falters, when both parties realizes that all roads that leads forward are paved with sadness and disappointments. Although I don’t recognize myself in the stories of the album, I feel the emotions that are dealt with in these songs, I understand what Charlie fink and his voice is singing about and I can feel the honesty that travels through the songs on this album.

Broken love, a broken heart and broken dreams will always be important and difficult concepts to write and make music about, Noah and the Whale shows that disclosing honesty and dressing it up with well orchestrated pop numbers is an excellent way of doing it. The First Day of Spring might not make you smile, or turn a gray day into sunshine, but it might be the best sad album about lost love that I have heard since Ryan Adams album Heartbreaker and Red House Painters Songs For A Blue Guitar. It might make you realize that there are more people than you that go through heartache. It can be a comforting realization at times.

I got stuck in rain a million times, every time I unlocked my bike this weekend it started pouring. Like someone upstairs was sitting, patiently and with great determination, and let all hell loose just when I got going. There was no end to the poring, I tried to move in the night but the weather kept me at bay. Plans were scrapped and in the middle of it all my phone batteries gave up on me. Fall is here and it is wearing its usual mix of aggressive storms and horizontal rain fall. There is no need for surprise or anger really, we all knew it would come, and all we need to do is dress accordingly and not get upset about it. But of course we do get upset, cause we are emotional people, and all rationality in the world does not help when your head is covered by cold rain and your wet jeans grasp your thighs.

In all this weather that worked full time against me I, and the rest of Amsterdam Agents, managed to destroy Amersfoort's floorball team (7-1) in front of a very energetic home crowd. I got send off for roughing and was responsible for the only goal we let in but otherwise I had a good game as a defender. Today I watched another trumping, when Chelsea went to Arsenal and showed who's boss in London and the Premier League. Drogba was magnificent, with two fantastic goals, and Mikel, Essien and the whole back four were perfect throughout the game. Former Arsenal left back Ashley Cole was behind two of the goals and was accordingly booed when he was substituted. Ah how nice it is to win away against a hostile crowd. That goes both in the Premier League and in the 1st Division of the Dutch Floorball League.

'I have read the right book to interpret your look'

Joanna Newsom - Peach, Plum, Pear

Here is a song that has this airy jazzy feel and combines it with 60s polka-dots cuteness that confidently flows through the sun cats it paints on the walls in your heart when you listen to it.

Thanksgiving is here but this is Europe so very few people care about this. This does not mean that it is a bad time to be thankful, so today I will try and think about the good things: about friends I have dotted around the world, who send me emails, text messages, who calls me from thunderstorms in Singapore, who write messages on cards, who comment on this blog, who give me space on couches and drive me in their cars, who make mix cds with music I send them, who buy me sushi, who give their time to my strange projects, and tell me that I am good when I question myself. It is a beautiful thing and now is as good as any day to give it up for you. I hope you think that I give something back, I hope that you occasionally take something from the music I send you, from the the short stories with spelling mistakes I give you, from my ears that listen to you concerns, and from the scribbles on this blog. We all fly different directions but hopefully we rub of each other, hopefully we make each other better people, give each other greater perspectives, and that, my friends, is something that I am very thankful for.

Where are your friends tonight?
If I could see all my friends tonight

Listening to Most Def's 2009 album The Ecstatic and I am surprised how good it is, Mos Def hasn't really delivered anything noteworthy in book book in a while now. Airportline welcomes him back to the rap scene with open arms after a first listen to this album in my newly isolated room. The beat on Twilite Speedball is one of the best I've heard this year and those of you that counted out The Neptunes can take a break now.

This is the third part of the Airportline founder and CEO answers random questions from a questionnaire that he has adapted from a Swedish blog and answered three weeks ago

Do you rather receive emails or letters?
There is something very nice with hand written letters, but since I receive more letters than I send I do feel a bit guilty about this. My mom send me letters with cows sometimes, I like that. But the message is more important than the medium.

Do you believe in love at first sight?
Yes, although it is a matter of definition because the love you feel at first sight is very different from the love you feel after getting to know someone. But they are both beautiful feelings and I believe in them both.

Have you puked in public?
Yes, in a friends lap on a bus in Karlstad. To my defence I told him I really needed to get of, but he assumed that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Never assume.

Are you satisfied with your life?
Yes, I am living it the only way I know how. Even though I lack some things which I might perhaps would have liked to have at this stage there are many positives in all the uncertainty I walk around in.

Are you spoiled?
I used to complain that I wasn’t but considering the people I've met and the places I've had the possibility to visit I think the only acceptable answer would be yes. Then again, I have no bed or money. But that is of course (partly) my own making.

What do you do tomorrow?
What I do everyday, do some work, do some writing, maybe meet a friend, make some food, do some reading. Listen to some music. I find amazing reward in some of these activities.

What is the worst thing you know?
People who only think of themselves. People who are not uninterested to meet new people or learn new things, people who complain that their life is boring but refuse to change even if they can, people who don’t know what they are talking about but still feel like they need to have an opinion, people who question art from a economic point of view, old ignorant people who claim that my generation is lazy and not willing to work hard, teenagers listening to bad commercial hip hop with their phone-speakers on busses and trains.

How much money do you waste during a week?
Depends on how you define waste, since I have very little money I feel that most of it goes to things I really value.

What celebrity do you think is a good role model?
Joyce Carol Oates

This is the second part of the questionnaire I answered about two weeks ago.

Do you own a pair of Converse?
I did buy a bootleg pair in Bangkok at one point but I believe they broke. I need more comfort than Converese can bring my feed anyway.

Do you usually get too drunk?
It happens, this I will not deny. I tend to blame the company I am in and my national origin.

Are you allergic to anything:
Yes, cats, dust, kiwi (not sure anymore), lack of sleep.

Have you had sex today:
No

Next goal in your life:
Finish the book project that I have been working on for 1,5 years. And get a permanent job, of course.

How do you answer in your cell phone?
‘Yeah its Patrik.’ I don’t know why, and I do not think it sounds especially nice, but that is what I say. When one of my Italian contacts call I occasionally say ‘pronto’. And when someone in my family calls I sometime answer ‘Tjänsteutveckling I Karlstad AB’ which is the old name for my dad’s company.

Who did you last call?
A person who will participate in a study I am conducting

What did the person you last spoke to say?
No problem, I can help you with this.

Numbers of hours you slept last night?
8.

Did you sleep alone?
Yes

Are you usually on time?
Yes. It is indescribably frustrating because no one else (or very few) I know is.

When do you feel good?
When I am in the sauna, when I have showered after working out, when I like what I write, when I read something I like, just after I have booked a trip I look forward to, after, during and before sex, when I have conversations that are good, when I hear a song for the first time and have to listen to it five times in a row.

When were you photographed last?
A few weeks ago while working, I looked focused.

How do you feel right now?
Tired, shoulders hurt, ears are warm and a headache is looming, but I’ve become totally consumed with answering these questions so can’t stop now.

Most common colour of your clothes?
Blue

What do you think about feet?
I have no problems with them. I don’t love them either. But they are good to have, in case you want to run, or walk.

What do you lack?
Money, a plan, a bed, a comfortable office chair.

Did you have a good night last night?
Not really, I had floorball practice and I was awful. Had to throw my stick in the wall at some point to release all the anger I had built up.

Favourite thing to drink in the morning?
Tea or orange juice

Do you shave your legs?
No

When do you usually go to bed?
Between twelve and one.

Are you shy?
No

Do you do any sports?
Yes, I am quite the sporty character. I play floorball, jog, bike, snowboard and cross country ski. The latter two very sporadically since I live in a country without snow or mountains.

This blog says nothing about my life. It is a bit cryptic and I think that was the plan. I think that is what I wanted. But, as a road to the person behind the words I will present a three legged series of posts that might shed some light on the individual that hides behind these words. Inspired by a questionnaire in one of the Swedish blogs I read I have made an Airportline version of it. So those of you that will be near a computer with an internet connection this weekend can follow this as it evolves. Here is part one, about sad songs and nicknames. Please note that the answers are about two weeks old. Can't let you get too close.

Nickname:
I’m not a fan of nicknames, except the one I created about a year ago: Dr. Mike Freedom. Calling it a nick name might be strong, its more of an alter ego, but it was a nice alter ego. Some of the nick names I’ve had include: Edvard, patte, hypotetisk and Patrix (a nickname me and two other Patrik shared, yes, it was around the time of the first Matrix movie). Lately P Diddy has been suggested and I’m sure there are many more but which I have repressed to a dark corner of my memory.

Songs that you mourn with when you are sad?
Have You Forgotten / Song For A Blue Guitar – Red House Painters, Ryan Adams – Call Me On Your Way Back Home (see video above), Aimee Mann – Wise Up, Bright Eyes – Lua, The National – About Today, Hets! – Du Är Också Dum, Håkan Hellström – Nu Kan Du Få Mig Så Lätt, Coldplay – Fix You, Frida Hyvönen – N.Y. and yeah, I have tons of great songs to be sad together with.

What do people think of you?
I think people have an ambivalent view of me. I think some people find me serious, driven and ambitious. Generally I think people struggle to pinpoint me but I hope most people find me kind, caring, unselfish and quite funny. This idea might be as far from the truth as the ‘serious, driven, ambitious’ idea. Maybe people describe me as calm; this is probably one of the defining things about me. This all goes out the window after a few beers though as I tend to be one of the most intense drunk persons that people have met.

Is this correct?
I think there is some truth to all these things, I enjoy being serious and not so serious. And I am a calm person.

What do you most often receive compliments for?
I think it is that I am funny, and that I have good taste in music. I respect both those opinions of course. Although it is worrying that the funny compliments often are highly correlated with alcohol consumption. I guess it is the curse of the Nordic man.

What do you tell people that you try to impress?
I make jokes about myself. Works surprisingly well since the world is full of self congratulatory motherfuckers. Yeah, I said it. I also enjoy showcasing my knowledge and interest in rap music since people find this highly unlikely based on my appearance.

How does one impress you?
By winning an argument. It might sound strange but I enjoy people that ague with me and win. Otherwise I am impressed by people that have qualities that I do not posses; for example, I am very impressed with people who have a good memory. I’m also impressed with people that have taken a chance and failed and who stand by it. The least impressive people are those that never risk anything.

Do you laugh on your own?
Yes, when I watch the Daily Show, when I read something online and watch youtube.

What does your last incoming text message say?:
I forgot my phone so can’t check, but it might have been regarding a police stake out in out apartment from my flatmate.

Where do you live?
In de Baarsjes in Amsterdam, apparently right by a major drug trafficking operation

It is a bit difficult to pin-point exactly what it is that is happening when Bradford Cox, member of Deerhunter and the headmaster of his soloproject Atlas Sound, team up with Banda Bear's Noah Lennox in this song from the album Logos. Being two of the most inventive musicians in the indie world it might not come as a giant surprise that this song is characterized by loose dreamy edges, but I was pleasantly surprised by the fantastic sun in the eye pop that jump out in this song. Walkabout sounds like the natural connection with the popier side of Animal Collective and the 'I want to dance all night feel' of those MGMT hits no one ever stops listening to. You can go and dream now.

A few months ago, or maybe more, I saw an interview with the Israeli writer Amos Oz. He stroke me as being brilliant, his understanding of the world, the way he reasoned about life and his striking life which he usually began with a walk in the desert at five in the morning followed by very focused writing. I've never read anything by him and soon forgot that I was suppose to, until this weekend, when browsing the amazingly stuffed shelves in Dublin's The Secret Book And Record Store. There, among pages and pages turned by unknown people, I found 'Black Box'. 4 Euros later I greeted Dublin's Sunday sun with a paper bag containing that very book. Now I am reading it simultaneously with Ulf Lundell's Swedish coming of age novel Jack and some coffee. So far they are both amazing, with Amos Oz employing a practical and focused tone that feels almost judicial but somehow also very passionate. And then Lundell, with his airy and often hilarious spoken language and conversations combined with his philosophical and poignant metaphors that paints a Swedish summer landscape with endless beauty. Two books I highly recommend after reading about 100 pages in each.

The CEO and founder of Airportline Inc. wanted to leave the internet and the world which was attached to it. 'My whole world is online!', he screamed one day in an empty café while finishing his third chai latté to the sound of his now upset stomach. He was a man in despair, so attached to his computer screen that his eyes could no longer focus on anything not digital. Even in the middle of the night while he was sleepwalking he found himself next to his laptop, hunching as if is was a cup of rice and he was a poor child in some African war zone.

His computer had become his altar, the tool which his life was lived through. 'This has to stop' he continued in the empty cafe, with only a black cat who was hunting mice acknowledging this somewhat unusual event. He rushed out from the cafe, out into the street where people lived without a computer in front of their eyes. They all looked depressed as they were pacing down the street in the spiky rain that fell. Like Forest Gump he began running through small town and villages where old men were reading newspapers. 'Why aren't you reading them for free online!' he yelled at them. Unfortunately for him they found the latest football scores more interesting than listening to a running CEO of a non-profit blog.

He kept on going although the worlds ears seemed deaf. Like a Duracell rabbit escaping the laptop which tormented him he cut thought the countryside like a knife cutting through a Christmas ham until he finally made it to the ocean. In a great salute to this man's quest the ocean bowed and drew itself back, showing its red carpet. Which happened to be brown and muddy. There he stood, with the wind blowing through every hole in his second hand jacked and starred out into the distance. A man finally free from his computer.

After a few minutes he returned to his everyday life and wrote a blog post about it. Unclear about the effect of his Forest Gump running he opened up an old newspaper which he had stolen from an old man which he passed by and read that the sea bows for anyone who walks there at the right time. This information pissed him off.

I am on a computer get away in a foreign country.
The Airportline operations will resume tomorrow.
There is no need for concern.

I know you're expecting words here, in this space, in this blog. Me too, I expect that they should just come out and put them self in order, make sentences that makes sense to you. Sentences that you can bring with you when you leave your computer and go out in that other world. That is why you come here, maybe. That is why I come here. I come here to read my own words. Sometimes they frustrate me, sometimes they anger me, sometimes they are misspelled or grammatically wrong.

In my head there is no grammar that is wrong, there are no spelling mistakes. Where do they come from? In that space between my mind and my fingers, why do they appear? I do not know and maybe that is the conflict that everyone that writes anything always have to struggle with, the words in your mind versus the words that you write. It would be convenient if my fingers that hammer these keys were completely controlled by my mind, it would even be something I would expect. But that cannot be true cause sometimes things come across as so much better in my head than on paper, or on a computer screen. Something is lost and I do not know where it is going.

Todays story and music tip is Melody Gardot. She got run over by a car, was advised to use music as a way to get back, and is now a ridiculously successful jazz singer. Read this and listen to this and you will see the beauty of life.

'I know its just the season' The Dodos sing in their song The Season from their somewhat disappointing 2009 sophomore album Visiter. There is no denying that the season is fall at this moment. The dark clouds hang over Amsterdam like overweight fruit just waiting to fall down on us and our bikes. I check my weather radar before I leave my house, time the small gaps without rain. In yesterdays the Daily Show Serena Williams sat with her powerful arms and claimed that she didn't know any 'child friendly dances'. I only know child friendly dances, maybe that is why Serena is sitting in a studio with John Stewart and I am sitting in a University library next to an abundance of Mac nerds and dress shoes wearing 21 year olds. I know its just the seasons. But it does not make it less real.



I know it's just the season
I sense no time or reason
The sky falls down; it's evening
The feeling goes; it's leaving

From the slowly progressing short story Love in the ruins:

'This is like that Pedro The Lion song Bad Diary Days,' he told her as she handed him his coffee. 'You know, when he sings: the breakfast cereal talked more than we did all day long'. He suddenly felt a wave of hopelessness coming over him. Who is going to pour the exact right amount of milk into my coffee, he wondered as he blew on the steam that was slowly rising from his cup.
She disregarded his music quote and the symbolism he found in it.
'So do you have any plans for the weekend.' she asked him in an attempt to not make the situation worse than it already was. She came across sounding like a business associate that just came out of the last meeting before the weekend, not really interested in the answer.
'I don't know,' he said, both to the question she asked and to the question he asked himself: How did we end up like this?

Sometimes I've been surprised, and even annoyed, at some women and what I have interpreted as an obsession with regards to their own appearance. The constant looking in the mirror always made me think that these people are a bit too vain for their own good. However, after reading Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being recently, I found a passage that made me revise my opinion and realize that there might be a deeper quest to this, at first seemingly superficial, behavior. Kundera writes:

It was not vanity that drew her to the mirror; it was amazement at seeing her own `I`. She forgot she was looking at the instrument panel of her body mechanisms; she thought she saw her soul shining through the features of her face. (p. 38)

This is an interesting idea that might force me to reevaluate my disdain for all the fashion bloggers that showcase seemly selfobessed photos of spoiled teenage girls and their 'style of the day'. Maybe they are just looking at their own soul and trying to figure things out. Do I really have the right to ridicule that? Or is it an attempt to glorify and intellectualize a vain approach to life? I guess that is up to each one to decide for themselves.

What is a good memory you have involving 30 Field Music?
I saw them at Paradiso in early 2007. I had a fever and felt high while I stood there with my head in the clouds and loved every minute of their quirky and ridiculously creative pop music. Field Music always felt like a band that wanted to have three songs in one. Some people probably found this frustrating. I however, loved it from the start. After the concert I went home and passed out, that might have been more due to the fever than their brilliance, but still. Its sad that they not longer exist, but nice that they became The Week That Was (who's song The Airportline gave this blog its name). Field Music is possibly one of the most underrated post millennium pop bands around.

A few months ago I was encouraged to answer various questions concerning the 30 most listened to artists on my last.fm profile. During a feverish June evening I wrote more or less thoughtful answers to these questions which I amid to publish on Facebook at some point. That point never came, since I never do what I intend on doing. So, now I will make a new plan (which I most likely will fail to adhere to as well) and publish some of these short texts on airportline instead. With videos. Here is the seventh post in this series.

What is your favorite song by 10 (Billy The Vision & The Dancers)?
I don't listen to this Swedish pop orchestra much anymore, but Nobel Square from their quirky titled album 'I was so unpopular in school and now they're giving me this beautiful bicycle' is still a great song for a summer afternoon when you want a positive perspective on things, and a chorus with some nananana.

Its Friday and the week that just started ended, or will end, at some point, in time. Time moves at the same speed as it always does. I move with it, or past it. I have no concept of time, this is something I've returned to often during the past couple of years. The fact that I have lost the feel for time, a concert a week ago can feel like it was a year ago and the smell from someone in my bed can feel like yesterday. But the clock on the wall (If I would have one) just keeps onticking , relentless in it's chronic movements into the unknown. Or the time is known, but what we fill it with is not.

As chronic as the time, so is the Swedish mentality towards Marijuana. When deciding to move to Amsterdam I was confronted with more Marijuana jokes per capita than anyone should encounter during a life time. Many Swedish people believe that the only thing the Dutch do is play beautiful football without winning any tournaments, and getting stoned. Thus, I was very pleased to see this article in the NRC International. There it was conclused that the Dutch does not smoke as much weed as my Nordic country men assume. They even smoke less than the EU average. Turns out that pizza baking Italy leads the chart before day sleeping Spain and hockey hair cut Czech Republic. Ah, how we in the editorial board of Airportline loves when national stereotypes crumble. With that said I will go and buy one kilo of hair gel, cause that is what we do here in the Netherlands.

I traveled north and south yesterday. North through the brown Swedish landscape and then south over the thick clouds. I fell asleep leaning on the train window as small Swedish towns passed me by. They stood still as if they wanted to hold time. I was in Sweden for a week. But it felt like a year. Or an hour. I told someone.

I left the light snowflakes behind at Stockholm Central and a few hours later I was walking from Amsterdam Lelylaan station towards my home in a thunder storm. I think we all struggle a bit when fall comes and steals all that energy that we recklessly threw around us this past summer. But the melancholia that seems forever built into the gray clouds, the cold rain, and the wind that blow through our clothes also evoke creativity. Two days ago you met Friday Hyvönen by a piano, today you meet Jens Lekman with a guitar. He is another amazing storyteller from Sweden who sings a heartwarming song about a love affair in the cold Swedish winter.

There was darkness and rain between Stockholm and Karlstad. I bought a sandwich with egg and we came home and I sat in the sauna before I found an old Joyce Carol Oates book. I walked by a lake and met friends. I got vaccinated and was given an expensive pen which I will write expensive words with. I took a train south, and a drunk teenage couple almost stopped the train while they were smoking at a stop, and Göteborg is where I laid my head yesterday and it is dark and gray and wet today. Tomorrow I go north and then south and when I lay down my head in the evening it will be in Amsterdam again. Right now I am in a sofa listening to Frida Hyvönen and I think that you should do the same.

Sitting in a café on Södermalm in Stockholm. Opposite me and my laptop my friend and his colleague are working on their secret online project. I cannot say anything about it. Or maybe I can, but I won't. Its more fun that way. Stockholm is still sunny and cold, like it should be this time of year. Yesterday I saw some upcoming bands at a showcase gig for a record label at Debaser. One of them, Friska Viljor, were really great and made me think of Shout Out Louds during their more intense times. Think these guys might make it big and if they do, you know where you heard it first. Airportline is never first, and does not believe that being first is important. But in Stockholm it is very important to be first, or at least not last. So were are acclimatising to this fact here in the editorial board of Airportline. It's been a hard days night by the Beatles is being spinned in the café now. Think I need one more coffee. Tomorrow the Airportline tour continues by car to Karlstad.

Airportline went to Sweden. Took a SAS flight to Stockholm. It was all very quiet, people don't talk too much when going to Sweden. The flight next to us was going to Budapest. But it souded like they were going to a Carneval. Maybe its all the spicy sausage they have over there. When we descended towards Stockholm, breaking through the thick clouds everything was brown and gray. This is the color of Sweden I thought. But today, after watching a great stand up show with the linguist and academic Frdrik Lindström at Norra Brunn last night, I took a walk around Vasastan/Östermalm in the sunshine and saw Swden from a much nicer view. It's still cool and quiet and everyone is wearing black and gray, as if it was some kind of Swedish Uniform, but the trees are yellow and red to make up for the loss of color among the people. I understand the news bulletins (have not decided if this is good or not) and yesterday while waiting for my friend to get some food I understood what the crazy old man who spoke to me said. That never happens in Amsterdam. Not the crazy people talking to me part, but the me understanding them part.

After an impressive hat trick in Amsterdam Agents trashing of HDM 2, and an equally impressive stint at a party, Airportline felt he deserved a break from running after a round shape of plastic. He also had to prepare for his forthcoming Sweden trip. This was not supported by one member of the Agents Floorball team. This is how it looked on my facebook wall late last night:

M
Still too hungover to practice? :D
Yesterday at 11:00pm

Airportline
haha, yes, I woke up realizing that someone had painted on my face and I felt the need to lay low. But no, had to finish a thing for work and have shit to take care of before I head to Sweden on Wednesday. November 5th from 19:30 onwards I'll be kicking your ass again though, so do not fear the floorball future!
Yesterday at 11:12pm

M
you should know by now that I don't take your little swedish threats seriously buddy. How about you just stick to writing pretty little short stories that make me feel all warm inside. They have a better affect on me :D
Yesterday at 11:17pm

Airportline
Damn, you've seen through my artificially created bad boy image which I tried to steal from Nas video to Made You Look. From now on I will devote my passion to art and kick your ass on the floorball field without you knowing it. Ignorance can also be bliss, I suppose.
11 hours ago

M
The words. Of a poet. Are always. Stronger than their... Actions. I look forward to our following encounter. buddy. I'm stealing your punctuation trick.
11 hours ago

Airportline
haha, that was class:) You can swing the sword of the written word, I respect that.
11 hours ago

M
respect deserves a Guinness!
2 hours ago

How do I have to dress for Drum and Base party?
I say; Neon, all neon.

The rain stopped last night. We took our bikes and rode the wet streets like cowboys ride the desert, with posture and a clear aim. There was a party and the fridge was full of beer. My friend is leaving the place and the country. So we talked about things, and we painted and drew on the walls. I wrote something about dancing. People asked why I used so many full stops. I like full stops I said, it forced people to stop and think. Often. We listened to Finnish hard rock, to The Drums, to Girls, to minimalist techno. It was a mixture of people and music but the beer kept flowing in a constant order. Suddenly we were on the street, the gloomy sky and random taxi cars passing us by did not tell us what time it was. I checked and my phone said four. I said I should go. So I went and today was a waste. You take one night and loose one day. That is the logic of life.

Today I listen exclusively to Miike Snow and their songs Funeral and In Search Of. Just look down.

I saw an interview with singer/songwriter Jaymay maybe a year and a half ago. I think I was in Sweden. I think I felt that it was the wrong place to be. Jaymay said that she was between London and New York, it sounded annoying for someone in only one place. Annoying since I was not between anything. I was in one place and that was the wrong place. But I downloaded her album cause I thought her music seemed sweet. Then I didn't listen that much to it, felt that it was a bit boring, a bit too sweet. But now when I am waiting for the rain to stop so I can bike out and go to a party for a friend that is leaving. Now it seems perfect. My friend will be between countries for a year, in every place and no place. Then Jaymay sounds perfect, and as we turn the clocks to winter I turn the stereo to Autumn Fallin' and too sweet might be just what I need right now. Never underestimate time and space.