Archive for June, 2008

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Published
by
Christian Halsted
on June 28, 2008
in Events, Me Myself and I, People, Photography and Various
. 0 Comments

Eric Cartman of South Park can finally agree upon something with God; Hippies. “Hippies. They’re everywhere, They wanna save the world, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad”. And go to festivals, I might add to Cartman’s classic itch. Anyhow, it seems like the same interpretation God has of them, as he every year decides to let it rain during both Roskilde and Glastonbury Music Festival.

I went to Roskilde in 2004 - one of the many years where it rained cats and dogs nearly 6 out of 6 days. I mean, not that watching Iggy Pop while water from the heavy rain was diluting my beer wasn’t cool enough in itself, but still, the mud is generally pretty annoying in the long run. Last year was even worse as far as I’ve heard. Hippies almost drowned in rain and mud, and a lot of people headed early home because of the terrible weather. This year seems to run into the same problem. But, what is really dense in my opinion, is to keep running the festivals in these specific last week of June/ first week of July. For as long as I’ve lived the two weeks of Wimbledon, which is pretty much the same, have been a combination of washouts and extreme heat-waves, so why is it that late July or early August isn’t the festival weeks? I really can’t figure it out…

But maybe I’m being this negative only because I’m not going. Neil Young is there, Radiohead will be playing and then of course Mike Skinner as The Streets. Even Slayer, Cat Power and Jay-Z will be rocking up the crowd… So why am I not a proud Roskilde festivalgoer this year? Well first of all, I haven’t got a ticket and don’t really want to pay 1800 DKK for one (call me niggardly). It might also be Platon and Aristotle’s idea of the human nature as reacting on background of prudence.

But then again; prudence my ass… - I fear that I’ve turned boring and old before time…

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All pictures and illustrations above are taken or made and copyrighted by Christian Halsted ®

Alien in Pretoria

Published
by
Christian Halsted
on June 26, 2008
in People, Publications and Various
. 0 Comments

As Darwin and Wallace’s theory suggests, more creatures in a population are born than can survive. This is the struggle for existence. So when some 10.000 Chinese decides to settle elsewhere - in this case South Africa - the colonialists must react. That’s pretty fair isn’t it? First they reacted with discrimination under apartheid which gave them very little liberty to earn decent money or have decent jobs. This also reflected their societal status, and respect was a word that wasn’t heard of for very long. Now, 17 years after the racist apartheid system ceased, the Chinese South Americans have won the rights to be classified as ‘Black’.

Now what is really strange, is the classification of Asians. People from Korea, Taiwan and Japan were categorized as ‘White’. But, no no, Chinese are ‘Black’. Weird? Then think about it again, and correct your impulse to ‘extremely lame’! Might even ferocious, I could argue.

Marcel Berlins, from Guardian, recalls a trip to South Africa in the 1960s, where the Chinese were still under very strict restrictions, but the Japanese were seen as ‘white’: “Hardly anyone at the time had the faintest idea how to distinguish between Chinese and Japanese people, even supposing they were aware that the latter, legally speaking, were now Caucasians. But what if a newly whitened Japanese person was treated as though they were Chinese? A team of government officials was sent out to explain to puzzled restaurant owners and other service providers that the east Asian-looking gentlemen soon to enter their premises were to be served politely rather than turfed out unceremoniously. It caused great confusion at the time, but was clearly successful in business terms.”

My first thought was, how does this benefit the Chinese, does it make any difference, and hpw does this shit work? Well, apparently, the motive was financial. By being part of the (’luda’cris) black label, the Chinese gets access to various black economic empowerment schemes available to the victims of apartheid. Great life.

My last comment won’t be any anthropological nonsense on why this is normal in South Africa, or why this is even possible to take place now-a-days. No, I want to quote The Yardbirds’s song called ‘Mister, You’re a better Man than I’, as I believe it’s more clever than what I can come up with right now: Could you condemn a man, If your faith he doesn’t hold? Say the colour of his skin, Is the colour of his soul? Or could you say if men, For king and country all must die? Then Mister you’re a better man than I, Yeah You’re a better man than I

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All pictures and illustrations above are taken or made and copyrighted by Christian Halsted ®

In Masquerade - My Political Comment

Published
by
Christian Halsted
on June 25, 2008
in Illustration, Me Myself and I and People
. 2 Comments

I am not the biggest political activist, nor do I follow the US election that intense as I feel I should. Nonetheless, I can’t bear the look of John McCain. It seems many Americans think of him as a lovable patriot with a maverick streak: The war hero of Vietnam, who will fight and stand up for the war in Iraq until the Muslim terrorists are sure they can’t mess with the Americans.

But! The inescapable ‘but’! Away from the political speeches and Republican newspaper’s headlines he’s an anti-abortion Creationist who surrounds himself with religious extremists. No matter how hard he tries to disguise it, the fact that McCain believe Islam is evil and gays are immoral is difficult to oversee. Sure, gays probably aren’t the ones helping to rid of Aids and Hiv, but I mean, isn’t it natural now-a-days that people have the possibility to be respected no matter what sex they prefer? Maybe not, but the sad thing is, that the dark sides of McCain’s primeval ideas doesn’t stop here. My beloved friend, John McCain, wants to appoint extreme conservatives to the Supreme Court and see abortion banned, just like his late ancestors would have it. Anachronism if you like - either way disastrous. But then again, could we expect something else from a man who was born on a military base, in Panama?

As young Americans return in bodybags from Iraq - and probably Iran too before long - an old soldier like McCain, who is from a family of warriors, seems a natural choice as the superpower-leader in this dangerous world. In my world John McCain seems to be a little bit like the new disability dolls: either he is a sick joke or a blessing - of course this depends on what mask you see him wearing. But, as Oscar Wilde pointed out in his ‘Truth of Masks’ : the usage of masks are very important in all games. Masks, he argued, has a double function as they are both picturesque and dramatic - just like McCain (patriot vs. creationist) can be argued to be.

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All pictures and illustrations above are taken or made and copyrighted by Christian Halsted ®

Curious of Curiosity - Touch Me I am Sick

Published
by
Christian Halsted
on June 12, 2008
in Anthropology, Me Myself and I, People and Various
. 1 Comment

I have a little fling for human and social sciences these days. Let it be sociology, philosophy, anthropology or linguistics - you name it… I am not sure why I like it or why it fascinates me, but sometimes I think it is because it doesn’t give me any real answers. I am not good at being told things, so I might as well read books that only suggest instead of state. Other times I believe it is of my curiosity; I have grown a strong desire to learn or know about reasons, causes, logic, judgments and diversity of these. (And then I am really fed up with gullible people, sorry to say).

When I saw the British classic Blow Up some years ago I forgot about quite quickly. Seeing it again some months ago made my mind curious to discover the places, the lines and the true meaning of the almost quintessential message of curiosity and meta-interest (as it is called in the academic milieux, I’ve been told). What seems to happen is apparently that human curiosity about curiosity itself combined with abstract thinking sometimes lead to mimesis and imagination. Probably a bit like the situation I often take myself in, where I think somebody walk in the hall outside the bathroom while I am showering. After 10 minutes of nervous searching around the flat I realize it was my own mirror-image that reflected a shadow. Really annoying, actually.

Another weird kind of curiosity is the interest of morbidity. This cathartic form of behaviour when seeing something disastrous is pretty bizarre, but I reckon everybody knows the feeling of curiosity when one sees a damaged car, a wrecked train or whatever Aristotle meant when saying ‘people enjoy contemplating the most precise images of things whose sight is painful to us’. It’s weird that such an unpleasant sight gives a kind of natural feeling of disgust that might even pleases you in other aspects of innate human emotions - and animalistic for that matter.

But to be honest; the reason why I’m writing this is because of some weird notions I’ve taken the last couple of months. First of all, why is it people always touch were a sign says ‘newly painted’? And why is people sniff when they are told that the person sitting next to them just farted? I mean, it’s just weird that this disgust needs to be verified isn’t it? It might just be that ‘People are Strange’ as Jim Morrison titled one of his songs. Maybe its because of the extreme curiosity that people suffer from (or benefit from, of course). Sometimes I think it is because people don’t trust each other, and want to confirm the warnings themselves! Either way, it is uncanny and even eerie, especially as I am curious to know why we are curious…

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All pictures above are taken and copyrighted by Christian Halsted ®

Wicked thing… - Folks get down in the Sunshine

Published
by
Christian Halsted
on June 11, 2008
in Me Myself and I
. 0 Comments

It’s a scary time we’re living in. First some crazy geezer blows himself and his non-democratic corpus up in front of the Danish Embassy in Pakistan. Then a Japanese guy makes a real life ‘Falling Down’ scene, as was he Michael Douglas, when he launched into a stabbing frenzy on a busy shopping street in Tokyo because he was ‘tired of life’. Two jerks equals 14 dead civilians. Great job guys, you really nailed it this time, didn’t you?

After all, when it’s summer and you are in safe and quite little Denmark you can’t complain that much. I read the other day in Monocle that Copenhagen was named the best city to live, and especially praised for its ‘cutting edge design, great transport system, restaurants and environmental credentials’. Although, taken into account that the population of Denmark is half the size London, and the population of Copenhagen is about the same as Borough of Chelsea (only far more Jean Marie Le Pen’ish), the whole transport system and environmental applauds needs to be taken into perspective. But still pretty wicked stuff!

Copenhagen has been called a rife full of liberal lefties - nonetheless, Copenhagen is as every other city a somewhat Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I reckon. Some parts are great, others aren’t. And while talking of Copenhagen and Denmark, I will lay it on thick by asking you to consider this BBC link (poor Burundi)!

Personally, my favourite place in Denmark is a small place called Rørvig. During winter a lot of the regular residents are a bit chowderheaded, drink Wiibroe beer and eat pork cracklings, although during the summer, the village is quite different. I went there during the weekend with Charlotte, and I might as well go there for the rest of the summer as it is really ‘wunderbar’.

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All the pictures above are taken and copyrighted by Christian Halsted ®

Copenhagen, helt sikkert!

Published
by
Christian Halsted
on June 6, 2008
in Events, Me Myself and I and Music
. 0 Comments

I am now back in Copenhagen for a little summer vacation, where I am currently enjoying the 25 degrees and blue sky. Quite opposite from what I came from in London where it was raining and windy most of the last days I enjoyed in The Old Smoke.

Enough about the weather though. Copenhagen is red hot these days as the city has its annual Distortion Festival where the trendy youth of Copenhagen gets very drunk 5 days in a row and listen to electronic music (not that there’s anything special in that, really). The distortion festival is the Danish proud answer to Sonar Festival in Barcelona, only a bit smaller and less respected (pathetic might be the right word, but I’m not gonna use it, as it actually is great fun). No matter what, it is a good excuse to go out and enjoy the summer nights, meet a lot of old friends as well as stand next to some bald, big and asinine Hell Angels rockers (and other Yobs). For some it is also a perfect way to check out the sultry unclad Scandinavian birds that makes your saliva run wild.

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All pictures above are taken and copyrighted by Christian Halsted ®