The Airportline: Observations

I wanted to go back to basics.
So I moved here.
No drama.
Just more white.
And maybe a functioning comment section.
Thank you.

No Longer No Longer
What You Ask
Strange Steps
Heels Turned Black
The cinders the cinders
They light the path
Of these strange steps
Take us back take us back

Flow sweetly hang heavy
You suddenly complete me
You suddeley complete me
Flow sweetly hang heavy
You suddenly complete me
You suddenly complete me

Oh oh aaayyy
Oh oh ayyee
Hysteric
Oh oh aaayyy
Oh oh ayeee
Hysterical

No wonder no wonder,
Other half, strange steps
Heels turned black.
The cinders they splinter
And light the path
These strange steps
Trace us back trace us back

Flow sweetly hang heavy
You suddenly complete me
You suddenly complete me
Flow sweetly hang heavy
You suddenly complete me
You suddenly complete me

Hysteric
Hysteric
Hysteric
Hysteric
Hysteric
Hysterical

She raced past me on the street, wind in her hair, tears from her eyes. I was always the one passing people by, leaving them behind me, staying ahead. Now she catapulted herself past me, left me among the other cyclists, in some slow stew of people who appear to stand still. 'I've got a devils haircut in my mind', Beck sang in my ears but the only thing I saw in the morning commotion was my speed being reduced to sand by the tears of a speeding woman. The fleetingness of the specialties we carry around.

Everyone changed their clocks except for me, or that is how it felt when I biked along the canal to the office thinking that it was unusually quiet. Normally the roads are filled with biking people trying to avoid hitting trucks, tourists, trams, tourists, walking people, cars, tourists, and all the other things that constantly is thrown at you while you try and reach the office in a reasonable time. Not today, today life seemed quiet and I thought that it was a very pleasant way to start the week. Then an appointment called and asked where I was and I immediately realized that I was in a different time zone. Jet-lag without flying. When I flew the 45 minutes flight between Las Vegas and Phoenix (an airport with no clocks!) and missed my connecting flight to Charlotte I had a similar feeling. That time I got drunk on white White that I bought in a gas station, this time I biked a bit faster and played catch up with time during the whole day.

In case you need something beautiful to rest your eyes on this weekend. Airportline present two visual stunning movies. New York I Love You has some great acting and if you are into love and dialog (as I most definitely am) it is a must, I found parts of it incredibly moving. Heima just makes you want to go to Iceland really bad. Really really bad.

I'm working on something, many things, might be useless, although nothing is, might be brilliant, but that is unlikely. All I know is that it is stealing time from the blog and you might look at this space and expect certain things, and rightly so. All I can say right now is that watch your RSS feeds cause no one knows when Airportline might tumble along in a more coherent manner again. And I was gonna give you quotes and music tips and write something about how the birds look through my glasses and the sounds of certain people and all that kind of stuff that you are used to. All I can say it that I am not out of words, they are just being typed in another place. Maybe I will tell you later.

In Amsterdam right now according to the fucking weather.
Today my mission is to minimize me moving around since I got a bit too excited by the coming of spring.

For music matching these dreams go here.

In Ukraine they have a saying when three people live together and have a sexual relationship with each other: a Swedish family. I learned of this yesterday and together with Bulgakov's master piece novel The Master and Margarita it made me sure that this nation is crazy. Not necessarily in a bad way, although their Swedish picture seems to be influenced by my home country's 1970s porn revival.

I've been sitting on trains and in airplanes again, and I've heard people describe my life as something that its not, maybe its my blog, maybe they are under the impression that this space is a true reflection of my life. Be assured that it is not, if you are sitting there in your office thinking that Airportline sure is up to crazy shit all the time, be assured that this is not the case.

I travel the functionalist road as well, even though I do spend time playing ping-pong in squats and run after rabbits in Eindhoven occasionally. I don't say this to be apologetic, or because my life is really boring, to me its not. I just worry sometime when I hear people describe the life they think I live and I keep thinking: wow, that sounds amazing.

Then again, I am sitting with a freshly brewed coffee, listening to Beach House's magical song Walk In The Park after watching the latest episode of the Daily Show. To me that is quite amazing, so maybe I'm just really easy to please, at least today, when I know that I don't need to do anything more or be anywhere else before I go to sleep.

Perhaps I did not convince you a few days ago when I suggested you listen to Joanna Newsom. For you, I present this paragraphs from a very nice interview in The Independent:

She is after all, just a girl. A girl who likes fashion (she has modelled for Armani and tells me excitedly that the sisters behind the avant-garde label Rodarte are "in their own amazing artistic world"); one who dates the Saturday Night Live comedian Andy Samberg (probably most famous over here for his "Dick in a Box" comedy skit with Justin Timberlake); a girl who likes to "go out to eat with my friends and family", and listen to Dirty Projectors and Roy Harper. One who loves Hemingway and Nabokov. I ask her when she would live if she could live at any point in history, and she responds with, "Now. Twenties Paris I wouldn't have minded, or 1970s southern California, but I wouldn't have been able to know the people I know. The main things that matter to me are relationships and friends and family."

click here for the whole interview

File under: Fuck you I won't do what you tell me (Swedish remix).

'A 41-year-old Swedish man has been arrested at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport after flying for years on a false pilots license, the Telegraaf reports.'

The rest of the story takes some of the drama away, the pilot did have a license before, but only for freight flights and it had expired years ago. But with the success of Stieg Larsson and other block-buster crime writers, such as Henning Mankell, Sweden is changing into a dark place with crime, grime and prostitution. Now we have illegal pilots flying around to emphasize that the picture of a freedom-loving liberated porn paradise that people thought Sweden was before no longer is true.

The time when Sweden was seen as a moralist tranquil nation of blond diplomats (its peak doubles being Carl Bildts involvement in the Dayton Agreement and the end end of the war in Bosnia) is slowly crumbling together with that IKEA lap you bought for your first student apartment. Maybe the Italian made shockumentary above saw this coming before the rest of us Swedes.

I myself can't wait to head out to Schiphol tomorrow evening for some flying.

’I’m an ant fucker,’ he said and laughed while I struggled to keep a straight face.
‘Yeah, that is what we call it in Dutch when we are really anal about things. ‘Ant fucker.’
‘Ant fucker?’ You guys are weird, I told my friends colleague when we stood in their studio in Eindhoven, trying to figure out what to do with my lap top before going to a party. The studio was situated in a former Nazi building in the city built by Philips, only a free kick away from the PSV Eindhoven stadium.

It is this night I blame for my current state, for the knives in my throat, for the unappealing fleece I am dressed up in as I try and be productive from home instead of from the office while a cold is trying to grab hold of me.

Before the ant fucker discussion we had been at a lecture where three title sequence directors gave talks and showed of their skills in front of an international crowd of design people, and me. One of the directors was French and had a highly impressive mustache. He also quoted Jean-Luc Goddard: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to”. He was naturally my favourite. He was also a real quote machine and told us that he had ‘holes in his head’ when he didn’t find the right words. Even the designers found this to be amusing.

After some beers at this exhibition (now unfortunately closed) we went to a far away squat/art installation party where we got accordingly drunk and I engaged in a heated discussion about free press with a man with a giant Afro from Eritrea. He said that Dawit Isaak (Swedish journalist in jail in the country) should have known that you cannot criticize the government. And even though we did not come to an agreement, he had a very interesting perspective of the whole situation (which has been hotly debated for years in the Swedish media) and a revolutionary heart which he had taken to Geneva a few weeks before to protest the UN sanctions against the country. After a while he left me as he said that he needed 'to devote some time to the ladies’. We proceeded to get the Goddard quoting French man drunk and confused, we talked about French music and he brushed away my love for Phoenix, Tahiti 80 and Sebastien Tellier claiming that Serge Gainsbourg was the one and only true genius, which I personally felt was a bit cliché for a mustache wearing French man. This was not information I passed on to him.

When the party music was toned down, and my accomplices felt that it was time to leave, we jogged home (I still have no idea why, or how, we did that) through Eindhoven in the middle of the night. The city was quiet and strange buildings were lit up and industrial sites were abandoned. I was also chasing rabbits. Unfortunately they were faster than me.

Joanna Newsom's new album is called Have One On Me and it is absolutely brilliant. I know I say a lot of music is great, fantastic, breathtaking, etc, but this is something that together with the new Beach House album truly stands out. I'm too hungry to have the energy to write something, but for those of you who likes this harpist playing folk singer before, you will most likely embrace this without thinking twice. For those of you that could not stand her voice, this is the time to give her another chance cause she has toned down some of her most extravagant sounds and gone for a more toned down expression. And as a writer, her dreamy perspective is as poignant as ever.

What in the world are we waiting for-
building glowing cities along the shore,
where the wind batters in
baiting my kin like a matador

So much value, placed upon
what lies just below our plans:
waiving my handkerchief,
running along, to the end of the sand

Long-life, speak your name.
I'm so tired of the guessing game
But, something is moving
just out of frame:
Slow-heart,
brace and aim.
'Occident'

Among the many fine Swedish authors I've read Bodil Malmsten stands out as one of the most important. This many people know. Bodil also has a blog (in Swedish), where she writes long and short things, sometimes fiction about a faimly of tejp, sometimes small sad observations of life, a life she used to live in France but now does in Sweden. She has humor, like when she linked to this article in The Guardian titled 'Ten rules for writing fiction'. Her only comment to this link, with numerous novels written? 'I've always wondered.'

The article lets authors give their advice on the writing process, and even though I am against rules in fiction writing there are some good things, like reading what you have read out loud or Magraret Atwood's suggestion of what to think about when writing on airplanes:
'Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.'

I finished a novel in Swedish this past week, and in the spur of the moment sent it out to some people who I trust. This was, according to Atawood a good plan as her number 8 rule is:
'You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.'

Anyway, read the article, its funny and even though I do not agree with many things I always find it interesting when authors discuss the writing process.

A new Vincent Van Gogh painting, depicting a windmill in the Paris area of Montmartre, has been founds in the city of Zwolle in The Netherlands NRC International reports. Pretty big news and perhaps a bit of consolation for skater Sven Kramer's historic mistake yesterday which has the whole country in shock. Otherwise Airportline is looking forward to Inter - Chelsea tonight , Sweden - Slovakia tomorrow morning and then a bit of culture on Saturday when the sweet twee duo Slow Club come to Amsterdam for an intimate show in De Nieuwe Anita. And, today was the official release date for the new Shout Out Louds album. I will get back to this soon, as they are one of my favorite Swedish bands, but until I do, have a click on the video bellow and keep your French dictionaries close at hand

Shout Out Louds - Fall Hard from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Do you remember that Belgian man who was paralyzed for 20 years and then suddenly could communicate again? Well, turns out that he can't communicate at all, he is just conscious (which I guess is a good thing). But I, who thought this story was amazing, it made me think of one of my favorite movies of all time The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (based on the true story of a French Elle editor who gets a stroke that leaves him paralyzed and goes on to write a book (as amazing as the movie) by blinking with one eye), feel cheated by this inaccurate information. In this story in NRC International a scientist claim that "It was too good to be true and we shouldn't have believed it". Don't like things that turn out out be too good to be true.

All of the stage names evaporate
And it's just a blood flushed and heart-rushing rates
Either to kick off too soon or stick around too late, to be far too dear or too cut-rate
Hold my hand again
Like at the lake

Hold that mirror, babe
Up to my face
Hear the whippoorwill
Am I breathing still?

A Hollywood Babylon bike-athon for breakdancers all broken down in their beds
Now intravenously fed
From a bag hanging over their heads
Can I put you down for some miles?
What do you say?
Cause don't you know, it's going to be a long, long way
But if you've got the cash
I'm ready to bust my ass

So, take this thin broken down circus clown reject and give her the name of a queen
Don't I know her from the mezzanine?
She didn't look like no princess to me
But with the proper words
Bestowed
And with her morning shoot
Her evening clothes
Don't call her a prostitute
Well, she ain't one of those
Just call her a proper little statue
Come unfroze

The Movie Dan In Real life is very influential in some of my writing. The music in this terrific Steve Carell movie comes from Norwegian pop crooner Sondre Lerche. I like this guy, and at times I become angry for never seeing him live although I've had my chances. Watching this clip from him playing at the Troubadour in Hollywood, when he is talking about he movies role in his career (somewhat ironically perhaps), shows some of that nice character. The song is a very sweet pop number about being in love and includes Lillian Samdal in the album version. In case you guys need a reminder, one week after Valentine's Day and all.

Reading Amos Oz 'How to cure a fanatic' in bed.
Page 44, 'make peace not love'.
He says that love is too rare to create peace, that there is not enough of it for everyone. Love is not the opposite of war, neither is brotherhood, or generosity. No, the opposite of war is peace. He then goes on to quote Robert Frost 'good fences make good neighbors' and I am reminded of how much I love the unsentimental clarity and position that Amos Oz takes in his writing.

One of last year’s must under-rated album was Peter Bjorn and Johns Living Thing. Coming off the success of their breakthrough album Writer’s Block they made sure to alienate as many people as possible by throwing out the warm sound of that output and instead land in a colder, more detached and minimalistic landscape. On Living Thing the band steered away from easy to digest melodies of Writers Block favorites like Paris 2004 and Young Folks.

I struggled with that change at first but eventually grew to like their new sound as the songs started to settle, and even though there is a coldness creeping around, the band never forgot how to be blue eyed romantics (I Want You!), funny (Living Thing) and deliver of the most amazing pop anthems of 2009 (Nothing To Worry About). Peter Bjorn and John have always walked their own way and there is a lot to be said for that. In this video by Amsterdam Acoustics they turn It Don’t Move Me into a celebration of musical creativity aided by what must be one of the coolest pianos on the planet.

Below are two other noteworthy video from the people at Amsterdam Acoustics, one where one of my true artistic role models, Erlend Øye plays on an Amsterdam tram, displaying some of the cities stunning beauty when the weather is good (I forgot the weather could be good here!) and a beautifully toned down and melancholic version of Passion Pits normally over the top The Reeling. Thanks to Katharina and Antoinette for opening my eyes to these recordings.

Yours Truly Presents: The Morning Benders "Excuses" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

A Singaporean friend of mine posted this video on someones Facebook wall. It was not my wall. But that is ok, it is still a great piece of video. A bunch of San Francisco musicians in a room singing a indie anthem. It feels very collective and cosy and nice. Those are generally seen as positive things, I've heard. In other news, my media blogging friend, and MW Communication founder has recommended airportline to an editor at a Swedish magazine by describing me as an 'international decadent rebel born in the 80s who loves indie music and movies like Me and you and everyone we know.' That does seem like a somewhat glorified description of myself, but hey, as Tracyanne Campbell in Camera Obscura sings: 'I need all the love I can get'.

Destroyer - Bay of Pigs
Geüpload door 0take99. - Bekijk de laatste uitgelichte muziek video clips.

Is it the quest for productivity that destroys creativity? The computer screen that blurs the emotional mind? Does the cheer notion of an office numb what should be a freely racing mind? Who is it that answers all those emails, write and publish the reports, and write those functional and straight sentences that you flood other peoples in boxes with?

I’m listening to Destroyers’ Bay of Pigs, a over 12-minutes long song that Stereogum labels as ‘ambient disco’. What sticks out not the stories or cleverly phrased ideas, it is the whole concept of creating this kind of music, so long and overbearing, so grand and epic that it feels like its been made in another dimension with no connection to this reality. Something that definitely could not be produced in an office environment. It takes too much time, it starts slow, with hazy waves of soft electronic whispers, and when Dan Bejar starts to sing he starts out explaining that,
‘Listen, I've been drinking, as our house lies in ruin. I don't know what I'm doing: alone, in the dark, at the park or at the pier, watching ships disappear in the rain.’

It is a song about letting your mind wander, letting it break free of reason. Bejar knows how to do this (and admittedly have had trouble writing songs not pushing and breaking the 10 minute mark throughout his career) and it does not feel like a surprise when he sings about a girl named Magnolia. The song shares the same feeling of understated longing as the movie with the same name, same kind of detachment from society and its productive wheels that keep on spinning. Illogical ramblings, or profound ideas? It matters little when Destroyer portrays a drifting motion to a world we never seem to get to. Will we ever get there?

I've been around flying and breaking things, and the snow and cold just won't leave Amsterdam, it refuses, it clings on the streets, covers the canals with ice, throws nails against our cheeks and paints our jackets with snow. And there is not much left to do than keep on moving, pull down our hats, put our scarfs on tighter and just face a reality that has no interest in giving us a helping hand. Airportline is past frustration, for now. Instead we make fun of the snow, fly over it, laugh at it, smile in the face its petty tries to put us down, to make us cave. 'Det är inte hur man har det, det är hur man tar det'. Put that in a Swedish/English translation program.

With connections to the regenerated London folk scene, or more than connections, they were Laura Marlins former band, Mumford and Sons released their debut album Sigh No More in 2009. With connections to Airportline favorites, and best Album of 2009 winners, Noah And The Whale, this orchestra brings another batch of excellent London based folk music. This special branch of folksters that have no problems with bluegrass, Irish folk tunes, pure storytelling and enjoy mixing it with a beautifully and earnest sounding modern folk that with great ease comes and fills the void that so many of us needed to fill after Fleet Foxes ordered beards on all popular musicians.

What comes out is earnest, and not seldom grand modern folk with a fantastically organic instrumentation. It is not surprising to learn that the producer also was behind the shifts when of the best albums of the 2000s, Arcade Fire’s 2004 magical and still unbelievably and impressive Funeral, was recorded. Sure, Mumford and Sons does not bring that kind of new tone as Arcade Fire did, or the same kind of daring drama and darkness of the latest Noah And The Whale output. But they do hit your heart in the same way as melodramatic British movies do, and if I were an atheist I would maybe even call this album a bit religious at times. Just listen to the pompous bluegrass soul chorus in Roll Away Your Stone or the thunderous chorus of standout The Cave (see above), a song that in its own would make me go and buy leather boots and move to the Amazons where I would listen to Bob Dylan and play some banjo.

Its not the new direction or the heroic risks that make Mumford and Sons such a terrific band, it’s the perfect touch they have on what works, like they made a country version of the surprisingly impressive 2009 Deportees album Under The Pavement The Beach, and even though they are not paving any new roads, Mumford and Sons know how to use the twists and turns on that familiar gravel road that so many folksters before them have walked down. They have undeniable potential and with some more bold reaches these guys can make something truly spectacular, the trumpet in Winter Winds tells me they already have. But then again, I was always weak for trumpets.

So, are these animals lamas or are they something else? The office cannot agree on an answer. It is a shame that my comment function is not really working but if anyone knows, make an attempt. It is not good for me to live in uncertainty regarding the name of this animal.

For more nice pictures like this one, go here to Lisa Milberg, cause that is where it is from.

I usually spend the first months of each year trying to catch up with the year before. Yesterday a friend of mine suggested Local Natives (A band for you Fleet Foxes fans out there, just played in Amsterdam without me realizing it) and for the past few days I've been deep down the melancholic songwriting of Cass McCombs, a traveling man who've lived everywhere in the US it seems, and now holds it down in Baltimore (where Beach House, who has created the best album this year so far, is also from). I like Cass McCombs for his dreaminess, his romantic shimmer and contained country influences. He is not doing something terribly unique, but there is something that moves me with this music, maybe it is the sounds of fleetingness, or moving, changing locations that is reflected in the music, and in me. This song reminds me of a music festival and makes me want to go to the US and drink beer from a plastic cup and stare into the sun.

I have few doubts regarding the brilliance of Quentin Tarantino, perhaps my generation’s most prolific film maker. From the beginning of his career he’s spread classics around him with an ease that is both intriguing, and at times, provoking. There are plenty of reasons to love this man, his movies do not only have intriguing plots, he is also a master of combining his movies with twisted music, something that in its own should place him among the modern masters of film making. In his latest movie, the Nazi slugging guerrilla fighting filled, Inglorious Basterds he ticks many of the boxes for a Tarantino classic.

One of my favourite aspects with the film-making of Tarantino is the characters in his movies. They are not only great on their own; they also interact with each other with an intensity that is remarkable considering all the loony elements he throws into his films. Few film makers can bring out so much suspense and bizarre moments as this man. Tarantino knows how to sequence the interactions between characters and pull them out so far that they physically hurt you; to create suspense between foes is something he’s done marvelously from the start, from the twisted monologues and discussions in between kills in Reservoir Dogs, through the post-killing bible quoting in Pulp Fiction, Tarantino has drawn out pre-murder suspense like no one else. He knows the anticipation of death is even more terrifying than death itself, not that anyone actually can verify that this is true.

In Inglorious Basterds he has never done this better, never done it with more intensity, never contrasted the characters with such suspense. From the brilliant opening scene it is a continuous trip through the twisted cruelty and humor that exist in every Tarantino movie. It is perfectly incorporated in the atmosphere and in the interactions between the characters. A master of writing contemporary dialog with pop cultural references, here he combines elite Nazis, farm boy Americans, and some Jews with a vengeance. It sounds like a field day for twistedness and Tarantino makes no one disappointed.

It is easy to see how this could have failed, I tell myself while the end credits roll down in front of me. Or maybe its not. I read that Tarantino waited 15 years to make this movie, that he has called it his master piece.

In the Airportline film book Pulp Fiction stand very close to my all time favourite movies. I am aware that this is a quite standard response for someone between 20 and 30. It is difficult for me to disagree with this but sometimes the masses are right I guess. Why is this relevant? Because for me, that is the only best Tarantino movie there is. My mind is filled with nostalgia that will never wash away, for me Pulp Fiction will always be the best, I’m defeated by my nostalgia.

But, for those of you not that are not emotionally and historically attached to his old classics, this could well be his best movie. It has beautiful filming, bizarre humor, glorious (if I may) bad guys, and the hilariously straight talking bad good guys. In Tarantino’s world no good man comes without some evil, and that evil has never been dressed better or served with such pleasing results as in this movie. Saying that Tarantion has done it again sounds a bit like a cliché, but not less true.

The High Road

Broken Bells | MySpace Music Videos

So you put together The Shins lead singer and principal songwriter James Mercer with Danger Mouse, perhaps most knows for being one half of Gnarls Barkley and for his surprisingly pleasant Grey Album, where he put together The Beatles White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album into his own little dreamy world. So yes, you put together these two, and what you get is Broken Bells who release their debut album in March. This is the first single from the album, a vintage sounding pop gem that works perfectly as a cure against the grey Amsterdam clouds this Friday.

I've been writing plenty lately, so if you have some patience you can soon look forward to:

1. A review of the new Beach House album Teen Dream

2. A review of Mumford And Sons album Sigh No More

3. A discussion of character interaction in Tarantino movies

4. A short short story titled 'The coffee that left the office'

Until then I bring you some color in this Feist (who will play a part in the upcoming Broken Social Scene album) video which all of you have seen but might have forgotten about.

Several times each day I get this message, from 'Mary', to one of the in-boxes I go through at work.

Sometimes I wonder who came up with this, and how many people actually click on the link which is also provided in the email. How many people who secretly dream that Mary will be something so much more than another spam email in an inbox. Personally I mostly wonder about the second last sentence, what happened there, did someone put in a word to much or is it suppose to be a bit confusing and mysterious, just like Mary herself?

The main character, Alan Blair, in Jonathan Ames (creator of the fabulous TV-series Bored To Death) novel 'Wake Up, Sir!' on sexuality:

'The human sex drive is relentless, especially the homosexuall human sex drive. One finds it everywhere, it knows no dark corners - or, for that matter, dimly lit corners - where it cannot trespass. But it's not just homosexuality that is prevalent: old-fashioned heterosexuality is still the most popular form of sensuality between two people. Drive past any school yard - somebody is producing these children, though I understand that enrollments have been dropping. Homosexuality is perhaps then making headway in terms of overall subscription, while of course self-abuse remains the most popular form of sensuality overall, though not between two people, unless the two people are self-abusing in each other's company, which is often a happy compromise in both the homosexual and heterosexual communities.'

On the back cover someone from the Portland Oregonian (had to google that to make sure it actually was a real paper, it is) claimd that Ames is a edgier David Sedaris. I would agree and say that generally, that is a good thing.

The Airportline office was rocked with some bad news yesterday which will negatively impact our already poor cash flow situation. If there would not be so many more causes worthy of donations and aid I would consider putting up a donation box here on the blog. Then again, I expect that the bulk of my readers also venture around financial issues from time to time. Anyway, this is no time for public despair. Instead I look forward and take the punch on my cheek like a man, and with the help from this fantastic pop song from the Swedish indie-pop favorites The Radio Dept. who are gearing up to release a new album this spring I continue to venture forward.

Facebook. Ah, it is interesting isn't it? How people behave there, the fact that you see the same people over and over, many of them who you never actually talk to, or want to know what they are doing. I've been forced to delete some of my 'friends' after excessive updates about them baking, or chillin' in the couch, or whatever, most of them are in Swedish and are not translatable unfortunately. Anyway, The Oatmeal.com has made a Facebook personality outline on their site. And since it is Friday, why not head over there and have a good laugh.

I've changed my mind so much I cant even trust it
My mind changed me so much I cant even trust myself

One of Airportline's favourite lyrics, and song titles.

Biked to work in freezing temperatures.
Wrote things, many things.
Emailed people, many people.
Some answered.
One calling me Edvard instead of Patrik.
It's ok, its Monday I answered.
It was Monday.
It is Monday.
Still.
The cold is also here.
Still.
Soon I will be in a car.
Play some floorball, eat some food, read some Jonathan Ames, do some sleeping.
Then it will start again.
Bike to work in freezing temperatures.
Write things, many things.
Email people, many people.
You might see a pattern.
In all of the first days of my life that is lining up
In front.
Of me.

I lost track of time, or I didn't loose track of it, but I filled it. Never made it to Fanfarlo on Tuesday. Concert was sold out, went and saw Deacon (member of Animal Collective) at Trouw instead, it was not a great show, not including the fact that he was wearing a Mali football jersey with Keita (Barcelona player), which by all means was quite fantastic. Then a Swedish friend of mine came from Sweden and we had vegan food and ecological beer. We had lunch in my old University building, I bought a book from Jonathan Ames even though I lack money, and we saw some terrible Dutch pop musicians and had beer that was not ecological. We went shopping and saw an exhibition called Niet Normaal, had some more beer, some pizza and we went to Utrecht one early morning where I scored three goals in a floorball game. Then went back and did not have bitterballens with our beer. We saw the FA-Cup game between Preston - Chelsea and fell asleep to Man Utd - Hull. We bought Belgian beers in the snowfall and made videos with questions and watched several episodes of Bored to Death. Today we woke up with hazy minds and he made his way out on the snowy streets and headed towards Eindhoven Airport. I stay low, guard my time and space. Trying not to loose it.

Airportline was recently encouraged to write a short presentation message that would be sent to his new colleagues. This is what he wrote:

I’m originally from Karlstad, Sweden but have lived in Malaysia, the United States and The Netherlands. I really enjoy working and studying in an international environment and appreciate the fact that I will be able to continue to do this at Spark. I finished my Masters degree in European Communication Studies at UvA in October last year, in my master thesis I researched the role of organizational culture and core values in Greenpeace International and Philips. At SPARK I will mainly work with communication aspects and try and develop the newsletter and website and figure out how we can use social media to make an even bigger impact and hopefully intensify the community around our projects. On my spare time I am an aspiring fiction writer, floorball (kind of indoor hockey) player, music nerd and excellent meatballs chef.

I biked with the other people through the streets of Amsterdam. The morning was young and the the streets paved with the gold that was painted by the sun on the water. The bike cues towards our office buildings, I used to stand on the other side and look at them, think that I am not those people, that they do not belong to my city. That they lived in their boxes, with time sheets, and money to buy shoes with their girlfriend/boyfriend on Saturdays in the Jordaan. Now I am on their side, biking the same streets, still wont have money for new shoes, but I will follow the pattern which modern society lays out for most of us. And now I will head over to the floorball court and yell at some floor-ballers, make them follow my instructions. Ah the smell of structure. It smells nothing like Laakso's 2005 Album My Gods. Maybe that is why it sounds to great right now. Specially the song Someone Somewhere, which you can listen to here. There is no 9-5 mentality there, is there?!

Airportline has had Fanfarlo's debut album from last year, Reservoir, on heavy rotation since getting hold of it in early December. After some hazy discussions over vegan food and underground rap music at OT301 here in Amsterdam it was decided that we should try and see if there are any good shows coming up in the city. This is something I normally do, but since my future has been in a constant flux the last few months I have not bothered investigating it very closely. But now, when I have tied up two jobs (one fun with very little money, and one less fun with ok money) which I will do parallel for the next couple of months I can start looking again. And, turns out that Fanfarlo is coming, on Tuesday, to Paradiso! Being lead by the distinct voice of fellow swede Simon Aurell this British folk-pop orchestra ends us sounding quite similar to Airportline favorites Noah And the Whale. Fanfarlo also brings the indie-crescendo masters Arcade Fire, and more acoustic and richly orchestrated folk-bands as Beirut, to mind. All in all it is a band that master to craft beautiful songs that should go down well in the rainy Amsterdam reality we exist in. This Sunday Airportline treets you to two acustic numbers with this wonderful little big band

One and a half years ago in a Short stories work shop. Choose a picture from a book with animals and write about it. I chose one of a cat flying into the unknown. A bit like this picture. Then we got ten minutes to write something. I remember that a Ukrainian artist who wanted to write a children's book liked what I wrote. This is how it turned out:

It represents movement, a forward motion in life. It’s about taking a chance and jumping into something unknown. It’s fun, elegant and natural. Standing still is missing out on everything that is moving, and since life is a movement, an organic evolution, its life you’re missing. A cost too great to bear, so you throw yourself out into something that is unknown and you might land on something unpleasant but it’s ok. It is what you learn from the movement that gives life meaning. Just as breathing is a movement of air, the physical movement of yourself is life: you stop either of them and it’s not only a stop of motion, it is a stop of life. Leaving is also entering and there is no use in looking back when life is happening in front of you. And even though there is knowledge in history, there is life in the future, and I choose life everyday of the week. Leave the motionless people behind, the once that are too afraid to let life shake them up. I have no time for them, as I move forward, they stand still.

The Airportline comment section is still not working. It is sad and true at the same time. I hate sad and true things. Long time Airportline friend, and now executive literary project editor, Gustav emailed this comment however:

Vecchio means old, I learned the other day. Or some word that resembles vecchio means old, at least. And now you use it on your blog. And I understand. It makes me proud of myself. Of some reason.

Gustav also blogs about his life in Rome and what he does at the United Nations World Food Program. Sometimes it is about trucks (yawn) and others about bookstores (yeah!).

One week ago on Ponte di Santa Trinita in Firenze. Two brown shoes on a triangle with Ponte Vecchio in the background.

So I am working on this small project, which among other things, focus on IKEA's re-launch in the Japanese market in 2006. I am looking into the company's advertising strategy, which was very successful and where IKEA set up small museums around the city and did several very creative things. In the middle of this search I stumbled over this Japanese commercial that seems to be from last year. It made me laugh. So I though it might make you laugh as well. In case you are covered in snow, or just a bit cold.

In Subbacultcha! Music Magazine December 2009 - January 2010 issue.

Top 5.
No 4.

Song: You Cried Me - Jookabox
Song of the year with that wonderful lyrical breakdown. No I can't let you do it! You should go, there's not much time. What? No! I won't let you do it! Ohw! Are you sure? Ok! Ahoooowahoow!

the whitest boy alive 1517 street concert ic berlin

the whitest boy alive | MySpace Music Videos

2009 came and went like all years do, with a volcano of music washing over us in all kind of formats. I lost track for a while, went back, got tired of the new, sat long night listening to 2 Pac and wanting time to stop so I could catch up. But the time when you actually could keep up is long gone, there is not enough time for anyone to keep track of all those great tunes that crawl around the internet waiting for some hungry ears to explode into. This is not a list, just some comments on things I paid attention to at some point. I was suppose to make it better and longer but ran out of steam.

Best song title
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – This Love Is Fucking Right.
Sweet indie pop that combines Belle & Sebastian cuteness with Jesus and Mary Chain distortion. It turns out sounding like a cheerful in love version of Swedish pop masters The Radio Dept.

Best falling in love song based on a European capital
Camera Obscura – French Navy
2009 was the year that this Scottish outfit finally got the recognition they deserved, and with an album like this My Maudlin Career it was always going to be impossible for them to stay under the radar. Makes you want to book a trip to Paris even if it is on a Eurolines bus.

Best White Funk
Whitest Boy Alive – 1517
It was early in the year when they played in a cold Berlin in front of a functionally dressed Berlin hipster crowd (see video above). The music was warm as a thick Norwegian sweater and the funk was whiter than Nordic milk.

Best lets turn everything into maximum
Passion Pit – Moth's Wings
This band annoyed many this past year. It is not difficult to understand why. With a high pitch voice and 1000 kilos of emotions in each song it takes its toll on the ears. But while Passion Pit became unbearable in the album format they occasionally got things right. This song, with its twisted electro chorus and confetti sound, did bring plety of smiles to my face.

Best British darkness epic pop
White Lies – E.S.T.
Having been dominated by Editors the past years, this year brought another black and white loving band when White Lies burst through with this magnificent heavy song with a chorus that is lethal in case you happen to hear it while jogging. Great Joy Division throwback. No idea how the rest of the album sounds like.

Greatest pop number
Atlas Sound – Walkabout (feat. Noah Lennox) / Girls – Lust For Life
I’m not even gonna write anything about these songs cause they are both so epic, and both define all that is good with a pop single that you just will have to listen yourself. I don’t believe that there are musts in life but if I would believe in it, I would tell you that you have to listen to these songs. You must listen to these songs. See, now I said it.

After what by all means should be labeled as a cultural day, crowned with a visit to Villa Manin (where Napoleon cruised around and gave away North East Italy and part of Croatia to Austria in exchange for some nice islands and recognition of France as a country) and the art exhibition The Age of Courbet and Monet, where some fine Impressionist art was hanging (among them the painting Poppies in the field by Pál Szinyei Merse (1845-1920) which immediately became one of my favorites of all time) in a great palace it is now time for a day of sport ('Una giornata sportiva'). Here is the plan:

15:00 Udinese - Lazio @ Stadio Friuli
18:15 Snaidero Udine - Carimat Pavia @ Palasport Carnera
20:45 Juventus - Milan @ the sofa a casa.

Only thing left now is a another cafe and then to wrap a Udinese scarf around my neck and venture out in the frigid temperatures that seems to follow me during my Christmas travels. Tomorrow I head north and back to Amsterdam which I hear is one big snow disaster. Oh, what joy!

One of Airportlines favourite bands talk about growing up and what sounds like the end of music making from one of my true creative role models Erlend Øye in The Independent:

"Doing this album and the tour is definitely the end of a chapter for me, of these last two years," says Øye. "There are the three Kings of Convenience album, and the other albums I've been making. I feel I've said a lot. It's not the end of the band, but as a recording musician, I would love to take it easy now. I've said a lot of things. I wouldn't want to write anymore after this unless it really came very strongly to me. I don't think I'm going to be looking for it anymore. I guess there is all the other life out there. When you record albums, tour, record albums, tour, it's a constant state of emergency. You are losing out on normal life, on having friendships with people, routines. I guess at my age, either you just continue at a constant state of emergency or you have to really slow the pace down, try to reconnect to normal life, if such a thing exists."

He was talking non stop in his cell phone, pacing around the train compartment throwing out italian words as if he was appearing in an Italian rap contest. Outside the wet streets of Padova slowly lined up next to the train which hurried through rainy landscapes. We listened to my mp3-player and tried to cure the heads we forgot about last night while tucked into one of the few alternative places in what probably is one of the most stunning cities I have visited. Florence is proud and arrogant and I cast no blame. In Pop Café they played loud Hot Chip remixes and served beer from Munich. It felt like a pocket from Berlin. My friend who lives there but flew to Bangkok today bought Amaros and they were as dolce as most things are here. Now it was post Amaro time and the man had been talking since we entered the train in Florence. There was no indication that he was running out of words. He had words, some of them apparently about how bad his brother was, the others remain unclear. But he had them and there was no denying the fact that he had to get them out, outside his head, into our lives. We had no say in this. So I banged my legs to the sound of Arcade Fire and was told I looked like a boy.

Last night Airportline walked the steep hill of Tarcento to witness the future, masterly disguised in a fierce fire which many a italian people, and one Swede, watched while drinking 1 Euro wine and eating some fine sausage. While on the top people were confused: towards which direction was the fire actually blowing? Turns out it went south, in what an expert is describing as "an unusually undecisive fire". This however did not hinder this expert, whose credentials remain unknown. He concluded that the "year will eventually be good although we'll have to make some sacrifices in the beginning". After the fire the city of Tarcento blew off some impressive fireworks in the cold air and when the final part of the giant fire fell to the ground to sheering Italians we knew that sometimes a giant fire on a hill is all you need to feel good, even though tomorrow might not look that great.

Somewhere ten minutes drive from Udinese calcio's football stadium Stadio Friuli. Have just been served some gnocchi with ragu and other goodies topped with espresso and some home made Limoncello. Working after this taste explosion is proving difficult, but it has to be done cause in a few hours we are going to see some kind of end of last year bon fire that will predict the future. If the smoke blows towards the east it will be a good year, if it blows to the west a bad one. Some Italians apparently started burning the future already yesterday, with constant eastward smoke as a result. This is the real deal though, or so the tell me. I will keep you posted about the future when I hear more about it. Tomorrow the Aiportline excursion travel south to Firenze.