The Airportline: Observations

It must just be the colors, and the kids, that keep me alive Cat Power sings in this beautiful song called Colors And The Kids from her 1998 album Moon Pix. It's just her and a piano, and Cat Power is one of those artists who sounds like her soul is aching when she is singing. I've seen her live two times, one time she was terrible and the other time she kicked me out for yelling too much. I still love her. It's so hard to go in the city, cause you want to say hello to everybody. It's so hard to go into the city, cause you wanna say hey I love you to everybody. When we were teenagers, we wanted to be the sky, she continues. Today at Queens Day we wanted to be the sky too.

Here is the artists I've listened to most this past week:

And we run over fields with tears in our eyes, and we stretch out our arms to touch the future which we never loose sight of. Someone looks at their wrist watch and tells us the time, but we can't hear it cause we don't care. You say that we are crazy, that we are different, and for a second you fear that its a bad thing, that we are detached from the rest of the world.
'These people just live on rails, I can't fix my time of space', I tell her as we move towards the future.
'But that's just a line from a song', she says. So we stop and wipe the sweat from our foreheads as the future races along without us.
'What do you mean?' I ask her.
'It's just a line from a song, its not our life. You can't live your life like it's a three minute pop song, life is more than verses and a chorus' she says while trying to catch the breath which she was running away from.
'Says who?' I ask. 'Who says that life cannot be exactly as a pop song?

Queens night is here and if I write something tomorrow it will make no sense and be highly influence by bad behavior. Just so you know.

One of my favourite songs of 2007 was Good Life with Kanye West and the for once not crazy annoying T-Pain. It's abut the good life. Today airportline will clear up what the difference between a plesant life, a good life and a meaningful life is. Enter: Segliman (2002), explained by Cartwright and Holmes (2006) in their article The Meaning of work: the challenge of regaining employee engagement and reducing cynicism:
'He [Segliman] regards the pleasant life, which is reflected in sensual pleasures (e.g. Material wealth) as the lowest state of happiness, closely followed by the good life, associated with enjoying something we are good at, with meaningful life providing the highest level of attainment and most lasting form of happiness. According to Seligman (2002b), a meaningful life is concerned with doing something one believes in (e.g. Has meaning and value).'

So, fuck they money and go out and do something you really believe in. Truth, delivered, each day on airportline.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Stockholm Syndrome Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Here is the second part of the Daily Shows visit to Sweden. This is pretty cool since they interview Leif Pagrotsky who is arguably one of the most interesting Swedish politicians. An avid concert goer, often spotted on music festivals, this little man became the minister for Trade in 1997 and the minister of Industry and Trade, both under Göran Persson (big fat former Social democratic Prime Minister) in 2002. One of few Swedish politicians who seem to have both and understanding and apprechiation concerning Swedish culture and its role on the international stage. His nickname? Paggan.

Otherwise Amsterdam is waiting for the inevitable destruction that Queens Day will bring. I try and get as much work done as possible, tents are being raised, traffic redirected and the weather has turned in to heavy cloud and wind. Just like it should be in other words.

I play floorball. It's no walk in the park. Sometimes a member in the club sends out emails to try and motivate people. He often quotes Sylvester Stallone. They are a bit insane, the emails, but have their charm. Here is an excerpt from last week's mail titled Balls, with the sub heading Philosophical discussion of balls:

You show up in trainings (and games) 365 days a year and do your 110% without questions - no matter if; you had a bad day, you had a good day, it was sunny, it rained, it snowed, it was cold, it was warm, you had to work late, you have to work early, you have a girlfriend, you have a wife, you have nobody, you have to travel 1000 km, you have to travel 10 m, you’re injured but can move, you’re mentally injured but can move, you have hangover but live, there is enough team mates, there is not enough team mates, your team mates are injured, your team mates are mentally injured, your team mates are in hangover but not dead, you have floorball ball to play with, the floorball ball is a little tiny bit broke, the floorball ball is completely broke, you don’t have floorball ball to play with, play without green hashish, play without red hashes, play without a shirt, play with your pants on/off, you have birthday, your uncles godfather’s cat has birthday, you have skills, you have no skills, you have no arm, you have no leg, you have no head, you have something, you have nothing.

This is what happens when you have too many Finnish men in your floorball team.

El Perro Del Mar's I Gotta Get Smart (which you can download here) from her brand new mini album Love Is Not Pop is flowing between my ears with its summery feeling. Tonight my sister arrives in the city which is experiencing its warmest April in 107 years if you do not count 2007 (when I also lived here). All according to my weather maverick of a room mate. And I've gotten my new Whitest Boy Alive t-shirt and my thesis is slowly moving along. Words are being put down, interviews are being scheduled, headlines are being formed, its slow, but moving. And right now El Perro Del Mar sings go on go on go over guitars that sounds like a colorful drink on the beach. Maybe its the dream of summer that caused this strong statement of eskapism from Göteborg natives Sara Assbring (El Perro Del Mar) and Rasmus Hägg (The producer, from Studio) and outside my window the sun it painting the leaves with bright colors, and we are here, in between the weather and life, in between winter and summer, in the middle. I gotta get stronger, she sings as the song reaches its end, but maybe this is the time to accept who we are.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Stockholm Syndrome
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

So we let CunninLynguists rip our hearts wide open with a concert that became some kind of tribute to all that is good with rap music. The intensity, the flow of words that has become modern day poetry, the beats that made Paradiso shake, and the base that clawed it's way downstairs and out in the dark night, it was all there for us to consume. And we were inside, in a pile of dancing and shaking people, and for a while I just stood there with a phony smile on my face cause I almost forgot what impact music can have. And with a crowd that knows all the songs this became symbolism in action. When the interaction between the artist and the audience is one of give and take, and all of a sudden everyone just gives, love, movements, respect, participation, there is few greater forces in live. It's for times like these I go to concerts.

In other news, the Daily Show went to Sweden (see video above) and tried to find out what the US would look like if it would become like Sweden. The Daily shows conclusion? It would consist of hot blond girls, people who like their jobs and superstars (Robyn) who recycle and have disproportionately small TVs. Personally, I think they could have done it better, but it's still pretty damn funny.

Even though I like most my rap urban (read Jay-Z, Nas, Kanye West), wicked (Lil Wayne, Dizzee Rascal, M.I.A.) or minimalist (Clipse, Pharrell) there is also room for some old school stuff in airportlines playlist. So tonight me and my French associate are putting on the same clothes as everyday to roll down to Paradiso and the sold out concert with CunninLynguists, the Kentucky underground (debatable) rappers with a smell of grits, a distaste for bling and a love for weed. Amsterdam seems to be the perfect venue for this eclectic group that sample everything that sound old and souly. Expectations are high, get it, high, ok, sorry.

Then I will bike home and listen to the fabulous new album by the literary pop nerds in Camera Obscura, My Maudlin Career which recently was hyped in a Pitchfork review so maybe it's finally time for this wounderful pop orchestra, who inspired me to name one of my first short stories Books Written For Girls after the title of one of their songs, to finally reach a bigger audience.

There is some banana remains in my speakers. It has unknown impact on the audio experience which at this moment consists of Kings Of Leon's fantastic debut EP from 2003, The Strokes meets southern rock sounding Holy Roller Novocaine.

Swedish television program Babel (one of three programs I watch every week on SVT Play, the other two are Hype and Kobra) went to Princeton to sit down with one of the big American writers, Joyce Carol Oates. It a beautiful interview where she talks about herself and her writing. For her writing is thinking:

Writing is some form of expression of thinking. If you don't think, you won't write. So people who watch a lot of television, or have noise in their ears, from music, or see a lot of people, they can't write or create any art because they don't have any time to think about it. But they may not miss it cause they are so busy. And young people that have music in their ears all the time, well, they're probably not gonna be writers, they have no time to think.

And even though I don't completely agree, since I think a lot when I listen to music, and music was the reason I started writing, the concept of not having time to think, and that people who always surround themselves with people or other forms of stimuli do not have time to think, says something that I think is very true.

Update: The Phoenix concert I told you about this past Saturday is now sold out by the way. Don't say I didn't warn you!

And spring is something we write in our agendas, a labeling of the meteorological reality that brighter nights and warmer day bring. But I spent all day inside, hiding from the world and the sun which reflect agaist the green trees outside. And when I went out I passed people walking slowly in the sun, who were barbecuing and being social. Is this spring or is it summer? Someone can google the definitions of spring and summer. We are the generation of exact information, there is no time to feel when Google can give you an answer in 0,003 seconds. I bike south to Burger King by Rembrandtplein, and I order food which I transport on my bike, and the tourists walk hand in hand by the Amstel River and I leave the sun behind me when I return to my apartment and the social people are still social as they embrace spring with open arms.

Ok people. There is no time to spare. Phoenix are playing in the New York Times hyped new Amsterdam location Trouw on the 4th of June. Tickets can be bought here, I just picked up two and they are gonna go fast as Phoenix is lining up an album that many people think will mean they finally get some serious recognition. I've already written about their fabulous first single 1901, one of the best pop songs so far this year. So, if you're in town, I suggest you do some ordering and I'll see you on the dancefloor. Magic will be immintent.

So we went and saw Alfred Hitchcock's Birds this Monday. How did they manage to create the scenes with all those birds, we wondered afterwards. And then yesterday, when the summer sun finally gave way for some summer rain, and we had just seen Woody Allen's creative fake documentary Zelig we watched this video from brilliant British sketch show Big Train. It didn't answer the question of how Hitchcock managed to get all those birds in one place, but it did tell us that changing the birds into 'the working class' produce brilliant comedy.

I'm a famous fan of cows. A lot of people think this is funny, and weird. But now, when New York sister duo CocoRosie, that I wrote about previously, pose in front of, yes, cows, for their upcoming concerts I feel that some respect is due.

I started writing on something yesterday when I was sitting on a roof. Here is the first paragraph in a story which has the working title 'The Sound of your life'.

I struggle with reading, on the roof. I try and enjoy the carefully thought about words in books. I surround myself with them, as a wall of ink on different papers, binded together by publishers, or machines. All with the purpose of confining a certain feeling, to tell a story that will engage, that will say something about life. Writing about life already says something. What does it say, you ask? I don’t know, you are the reader and I’m the writer, let’s not confuse our roles. I’m a writer. I’m not an author, to be an author you have to have written three books someone said in an interview. I have written zero books, so I’m a writer. I want to write, now. So I put down the well phrased book with all it’s great concepts, with all its well crafted characters, the built in drama, the perfectly descriptive sceneries and creative outburst dotted with inventive words.

the whitest boy alive 1517 street concert ic berlin


The hours of life keeps walking by, framed by sunshine, here in Amsterdam. And I've written emails to people which I depend on for my degree, and I biked through the city with my bike that is now equipped with a 'I love my bike' bell. I never ring it. Instead I let the sun move the people on the sidewalks, I don't want to destroy their leisurely pleasure. I'll let them dream on, for a little longer, soon another Amsterdammer will inevitably use their own shiny bell and crack the world of sunshine and carelessness that consume them. And I looked for a belt at H&M but I couldn't find one, so I went out, in the sun, with the Whitest Boy Alive album and it's funky components. I made my way home, with the wind drawing it's fingers through my hair, to my bed, to my computer. The sun is still up. The Whitest Boy Alive are still playing, like in this video from Berlin

Thesis writing/reading day. I read Oorschot & Hogerhuis 2006 book, How people get lost in organizations – On communication and organizing. It's brilliant for my topic and they have the good taste to throw in some high culture quotes and references to old school plays here and there. Just because they can. Creativity runs high in the book and when they explain the concept of linearity in management thinking they compare it with the concept of a photograph, claiming that 'When you take a picture of a group of people you create a new reality that is called photograph:

• It is a moment frozen in time that immediately ceases to exist.
• The photo is a representation of a reality and no more.
• Add to that the fact that the photo refers to history, it no longer is.
• In order to make the photo possible, much is omitted; many of the things that can be named and many things we do not even notice because of our limited powers of observation.
• What you will get to see depends on the vantage point from which the photo is taken.
• The photographer also matters.
• Not to mention that is is possible to falsify the image by adding to or omitting from the original photo.

(p. 67-78)

Let's get personal, Belle and Sebastian sounding gay New York band The Ballet sings in their song Personal. Airportline will also get a bit personal. As many of your have probably noticed the 25 things about me list swamped the world of Facebook a few months ago. I'm bridging the void between the social network world and the so called blogosphere (which is a highly contested concept) by posting my own 25 list here, on my blog, starting, today.

1. I have cried during two movies: Lassie when I was seven, and The Diving Bell and The Butterfly one year ago.

2. Once I got kicked out from a Cat Power concert because I was yelling for her to play the song Maybe Not too many times (I blame youth, and Jägermesister). Interestingly enough, she played the song first, and had me kicked out afterwards.

3. I have been blogging four and a half years, first in Swedish and since January in English. I've also written for several music fanzines, this has not made me rich. I’ve also written for some magazines, also didn’t make me rich.

4. When I lived in Malaysia I knew two music nerds that worked in a music store in Kuala Lumpur. They fooled me into believing that the best Sonic Youth album was Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. With this I want to say that I am easily fooled.

5. I’m what Wikipedia describe as a Private Christian (Believe in God and in doing good things, but not within a church context). This surprise a lot of people, maybe due to my lifestyle, and my love for rap lyrics about dealing cocaine.

So it's Saturday again and time for another song. The 23rd of March 2005 I made a mix-cd to my sister with the somewhat mushy and melodramatic title ‘From One Heart To Another’. It consisted of 15 songs with motivations. The forthcoming 15 Saturdays I will present one of these songs per week with the motivations translated into English, so that you always have a song I thought was great in March of 2005 to listen to as you begin the weekend. This is song number 9 in this slow moving series. My motivation for this Arctic Monkeys song is pretty interesting considering they were unknown for the vast majority of people at the time:

Like a mixture of The Libertines and Razorlight, British, melodic, relaxed and pretty damn nice actually. The band name is a bit strange (well, even terrible) but their style is amazing and uncompromising. Someone in the dagensskiva.com forum claimed that this will be the next NME hype. I think that is a correct assumption.

A few months after I made this cd Arctic Monkeys released their debut album and became the fastest selling artist in British music history. Just to keep you posted.

And still I feel as If I'm nothing more than a hamster in a wheel,
enough with the women they don't see past the chain,
I don't see past the ass,
two can play this game

Re-Up Gang lays down some 'mo money mo problems' realism in the humbly titled track Ultimate Flow. It's 21 degrees in Amsterdam and the sun is painting the streets with bright colors, and we're taking it to the park with some food, and I'm bringing my note pad, readings and music and I will burn my Swedish milk white skin.

Three things you should not miss:

Johann Hari has written an amazing article of what is happening in Dubai now that the financial crisis hit's this financial hub in the middle east. The picture he is painting is both amazingly interesting and deeply troubling, one of the best newspaper stories I've read in a very long time:
The Dark Side Of Dubai

My Congo blogging friend Simon has found some amazing short videos with Italian acress, model, child of Ingrid Bergman and now also a master of quirky sexual education videos, Isabella Rossellini klick here to see her fuck a whale. You don't want to miss this.

Jenny Wilson, Sweden's new modern soul and R&B master, has made of of the stand out albums of the year so far with Hardships. It's the most unSwedish thing to come out of Sweden since kaviar. Go here and listen, I'll get back to her at some late point.

This is not a blog about football. It is about life, beauty and art and thoughts. Yesterday these concepts were suddenly aligned with both each other and with football. When Chelsea's blue knights rode over the green grass of Anfield Road, encouraged by a Dutch coach and a forcefulness in midfield from Ballack and Essien, it was worthy of a war scene in a Hemingway novel. As a Chelsea fan the games against Liverpool have carried with them something special after all the Champions League meetings. Yesterdays game surprised by being an open affair with both teams initially creating all sorts of problems for the defenders in both teams. Spanish pretty boy Torres looked like he would make the evening a sad one for us Chelsea fans when he cleverly sneaked in between the Chelsea defence and midfield to score 1-0 early on.

Chelsea forced their way into the game, mainly due to some key tackles from Ivanovic, and a midfield that found all sorts of space between a Liverpool team that struggled to find their normal Anfield swagger. Chelsea created more and more chances, with Drogba being wasteful before Ivanovic, possibly the most under rated Chelsea player around, hit the red army hard two times. Anfields red warriors suddenly looked like a group of school boys trying to pick a fight with some older and stronger guys. Gerrard was hanging with his head and Fabio Aurelio had no control over Kalou on his side. In the inner midfield Essien and Ballack paraded as if they had just conquered the city of Liverpool, giving no space for the reds to create any pressure. Drogba scored 3-1 after Ballack's through ball which cut through Liverpool's already badly wounded defense to Malouda who, with the French touch Foucault use in his writing, hit the ball perfectly to Chelseas own Napoleon, Didier Drogba, who came conquering in his African cornrows like his sole goal in life was to kill that football. And I almost almost spilled all the beer at the table at Tara's in excitement after seeing the best Chelsea performance of the season. The fact that I know way too many proud Liverpool supporters made the taste almost as sweet as a Whopper Meal while hung over. Good times.

Airportline sent our Norwegian correspondent to Paris. She went straight to Le Pére Lachaise to make some art. The result is quite magnificent I must say, a doom like feeling spreads over the airportline posters in these images (klick on them to make them big and beautiful). This is the first installment in Airportline's new series Guerrilla Advertising where we send out correspondents in the world to re conceptualize what a blog means, and what advertising means. What comes out is for you to decide, tasteless marketing, art, crossborder communication, glocalisation, whatever reaction you get, that is what it means.

When Katharina does not put up Airportline posters in Paris she raises moths in the UvA Science park, writes in her blog and occasionally swing her hips to indiemusic. She also drinks oil.

If you want to be a part of this ongoing project don't hesitate to contact me either by commenting or by email me at: hypotetisk@hotmail.com

Airportlines Guerrilla advertising has kicked off in Paris where posters recently surfaced at a very famous cemetary. More information regarding this in the near future. Otherwise in Airportlineworld, I saw a great interview in the Swedish literary program Babel with Israeli author Amos Oz where he claimed that curious people are better people than not curious people. Then he added that curious people are also better lovers than non curious people. I have not thought about this before, but I will agree with him. He also explained that he wakes up at 5 in the morning and then takes a 45 minute walk in the desert. It put's things in perspective, he claimed.

Amos Oz is this weeks role model. A 70-year old man who once said he wanted to 'be a book' and who walks in the desert in the morning. Respect.

The magic of reading is difficult to describe, the active creation of a story from your own personal experiences is something both personal and internal. Italo Calvino comes very close to explaining this in his book If On A Winter's Night A Traveller:

“Reading,” he says, “is always this: there is a thing that is there, a thing made of writing, a solid, material object, which cannot be changed, and through this thing we measure ourselves against something else that is not present, something else that belongs to the immaterial, invisible world, because it can only be thought, imagined, or because it was once and no longer, past, lost, unattainable in the land of the dead...”
“Or that is not present because it does not yet exist, something desired, feared, possible or impossible,” Ludmila says. “Reading is going towards something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be....”

Otherwise in Airportlineland, it's Monday after a weekend that involved most things that makes life better than most other things. Exept sleep, I somehow missed out on sleep. Not ideal for group work.

We overdid it.
Last night.
And now the sun is gone.
At least we have a baguette.
And coffee.
It is a morning for coffee.

Summer is in Amsterdam, it moved in just when we needed it. Every spot with sun is full of beer drinking, coffee sipping, newspaper reading, sunglasses wearing, people. The mentality has changed, random conversations appear between people, bikes go slower as their drivers make sure to catch as much sun as possible, it's all very plesant. The wind is still here, to make us remember that this still is Amsterdam, but it really doesnt matter. Airportline celebrates by putting on our nicest tennis clothes and biking to Westerpark for some tennis action. Tomorrow Airportlines Zürich associate, by some reffered to as Udo Dirkschneider arrives in the city. He reported about kids drinking red bull and vodka on the night train to Gent where is is now.

For you Swedish people, one of my favourite blogs bigtalkstrangewalk have included the book tips I gave to their writer Carolina for her trip to New York in this post. For those of you that hate clicking I suggested:

Keith Gessen - All The Sad Young Litterary Men
Elise Blackwell - Grub
Italo Calvino - If On A Winter's Night A Traveller

A theater director said that going to the theater should give the same feeling as falling down a flight of stairs. 'That goes for all art I think' she continued. Cocorosie, a New York sister band with ties to Antony And The Johnsons, have a remarkable ability to create haunting but still beautiful music. Their song Werewolf is a great example of art that is very difficult to escape being emotionally effected by. A person commenting on Youtube explained the plot of the song as following:

'She is telling a story to her son about her troubled adolescence and how her father had sex with her before he died, then suspecting that she was pregnant, she runs away, then gets picked up by another guy who resembles her father, and that guy has sex with her too, so she tells her son that she honestly doesn't know who his father is, but she says don't worry just shake it off, like I did.'

This topic could be unbearable if not handled the right way, but Cocorosie have both the poetic ability and dreamy sound scape to fill this song not only with pain, but also a with a unsettling feeling of beauty and mystery.

I don't mean to close the door
but for the record my heart is sore
you blew through me like bullet holes
left stains on my sheets and stains on my soul
you left me broke down begging for change
had to catch a ride with a man who's deranged
he had your hands and my father's face
another western vampire
different time same place
i have dreams that brings me sadness
rain much deeper than a river
sorrow flow through me
tiny waves of shivers
corny movies make me reminisce