This moment was the apotheosis of the postmodern era — the era of images and perceptions

I forgot to write something about 9-11, which wasn't all that strange since I was travelling on the date in question.

9-11 to me is the Kennedy assassination of our generation. Everyone in my parents' generation tend to remember where they were when they heard Kennedy had been shot, and most people I know can tell you how and where they found out that the planes had hit WTC.

I was at work. At the place I worked then there was always a TV on, up in one corner of the room. Often muted, sometimes with the sound on. No one had really explained what it was doing there, and I'm not sure anyone knew. I heard someone say that a plane had crashed into WTC, so I got up from my desk and walked over to see if I could get details. At the time I thought it was a one-engine Cessna or something, some rookie or suicidal pilot.

As I walked over I looked up at the TV, and watched live on CNN as the second plane hit the South Tower. That image of the plane hitting the tower, the ball of fire, debris spraying out in all directions, has etched itself into my mind.

I've read a lot of the conspiracy theories around 9-11. I've also read stuff that while not spelling out suspected government involvement in 9-11 at least hints at it. My standpoint is that I just don't know. I find it hard to believe that any government could murder so many of its citizens to justify, for example, the privatization of the military.

In September of 2000, The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a non-profit organisation released the report Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, explaining their view on how America should develop their armed forces. In it, they write that "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor". Jeremy Scahill writes about this in "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" (scary but necessary reading), and points out, like many others have, that the presence of private security companies within US armed forces increased significantly after 9-11.

I don't believe the conspiracy theorists that tells us that the events of 9-11 was engineered specifically for this purpose. That Erik Prince and other madmen were somehow involved. But you have to realise that a lot of these organisations, be they PNAC or Xe Services LLC (formerly known as Blackwater) or others, have some troubling ties to the Bush administration (check out this list), extremist Christian groups and other people whose opinions in no way, shape or form should be able to influence how the world works. Undoubtedly they have had a say in how more and more of America's defense budget is funneled into private military companies.

It would be nice if, as we've become quote more civilised unquote, the world has become a better place over the years, if we're talking about war and hidden agendas. After all, the Internet allows us unprecedented access to information and news, from a variety of sources, so we should be able to see through any subterfuge on that scale. The control of the news flow is no longer in the hands of the few.

However, it seems to have become worse and worse. I'm not really interested in politics, which to me is sort of a weakness, since it would give me at least the semblance of a grasp on How Things Work, but I know enough to know that a lot people are in it for themselves, regardless of whether its on a private or national scale. I have yet to meet or see a single politican that I trust. And this is in Sweden, where we don't bother with concepts like war or terrorism. I can't imagine what it must be like to live in the US and have opinions outside of the party line, so to speak.

Reminiscences make one feel so deliciously aged and sad

I got an email from an acquaintance today, saying that this was the best post I had written. I remember a few posts over the course of this blog vividly, but this, strangely enough was not one of them. So I read it, smiled at the beginning and then almost started crying when I read through it.

I'm still upset about the fact that my grandfather is not getting the dignified passing I always envisioned for him, and this is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Of course, Mah Girl was able to turn me around with a few simple words. “Remember good things about him, and not this. And rejoice in the fact that he will always be remembered, through your words.”

So I did. And I do. And I will. And I will remember him through the mechanical calendar, that my father set aside for me as he and other members of our extended family cleaned out The Old Man's apartment. In Swedish The Old Man is Den Gamle, abbreviated DG. He has gone by this name since before I was born. He will continue to go by this name after he is gone, and we'll all remember him with smiles on our faces.

And by all, I do mean all. One of my cousins has calculated that there are over 40 people descended from DG. Five generations. My grandfather's daughter, my father's sister, has a daughter who has a daughter who has a daughter. We are legion, for we are many.

Driven by need for transcendence

I realized today just how much I miss this band. This is “Tat Twam Asi”, off earthtone9's third and final full-length, “arc'tan'gent”.



I had the privilege of watching et9 live twice, when they opened in Stockholm for both Pitchshifter and Fear Factory. They were a tragically overlooked band that deserved a lot more attention than they got. That's the way it often goes.

Children should be seen and not heard

Today, in line at the grocery store, we were assaulted by what sounded like an air-raid siren. It was, in fact, a child. Face painted, most likely from a visit to McD's, screaming her lungs out like the horrible little banshee she was, howling at her parents, banging at walls, pillars, shopping carts, whatever. Such parental bliss. Such harmony. And the parents reacted soooo well, I think. I felt an urge to step up and start yelling as well. But I didn't. I thought of my happy place. Happy, happy, happy!

Two conclusions were drawn from this. One of them has been aired here before, but it needs to be said again.

Before I go any further I have to say I don't know jack about parenting. I don't want to know. I haven't really discussed the intricacies of actually forming a person out of the little bundle of joy and excruciating pain that's the sum of the genetic material of you and your significant other. Sure, the subject has come up, but I have nothing to add, and truth be told, since I don't plan on having children, ever, I don't really care. This might sound harsh, but it's true. Why discuss births and pregnancies and diapers and all that when it will never apply to you?

At the same time I am filled with nothing but pride over the friends and family members who actually manage the act of parenting. Who will, no doubt, make this a better world by filling it with complete, happy, stable people. You know who you are.

So. The conclusions.

There should be some sort of license required to spawn children. Or at least some sort of test after child one, to see if you actually do a good job and get to have another. I'm not a believer in any kind of genetic supremacy theories, but I do believe some people really shouldn't be parents. I applaud those that come to this conclusion themselves, and I loathe those that I see screaming at their children. Or worse, hitting them. Some time ago, I berated a woman on the subway that slapped her son when he wouldn't stop talking. Again, some people shouldn't have children.

The second conclusion is that my father was a parenting genius. When my brother and I got a little frisky, he would tell us to play carrots. Because carrots are silent and still. And we did.

I'm the one on the far right. Pre-beard.
My brother is second from the left.

We played carrots. To this day I can't believe it worked. He must have used some sort of hypnosis. Or maybe we were just very well-adjusted children. This is where Mah Girl says “or stupid”. I prefer well-adjusted.

No one is so old that he does not think he could live another year

I have vivid memories of my grandparents’ place. A big old house, some unnamed shade of green bleached by the sun, sitting at the end of a short gravel road, the massive yard dropping down behind it, rolling hills and all. I remember running around on those vast expanses of grass, with my brother and cousins and one in a long line of dogs my grandfather had.

I only really remember one of those dogs, Manne, a golden retriever that my brother called his cow. This was never questioned nor explained, it was simply one of those things that children say and that adults take for granted.

To me it seemed that the yard and the basement was the domain of my grandfather, while my grandmother ruled the house proper. She ran a very tight ship, though this is mostly a feeling and not the result of a series of hard facts that I can point to. Most of all I remember her cooking. The soft chocolate cake, the fish dish now named “Grandma fish”, and the peas. There were always too many peas. And my brother always ate them all. For those that know my brother, this should come as no great surprise.

The basement was a land of wonder and mystery to us. This was where we watched 8 mm films that my grandfather had shot with a handheld. This was where he had built a model railroad, landscaped with trees and buildings and tiny people. This was where the big boiler that kept the house warm lived, a massive monstrosity that smelled of grease and burning wood.

Watching films down there was like traveling in time. We would all walk down the stairs and then stare in awe as the pictures flickered to life. The color was off, everything was tinted red and the people captured there bore only a slight resemblance to my father and his brothers and sisters, as they gallivanted around on the shore of some lake, sunned themselves on the cliffs and boogie-boarded behind a boat. That’s all I remember from those films, though I’m sure we watched others as well.

The model railroad was a rare attraction, something we only got to see on a few occasions, and always displayed to us with a note of pride in my grandfather’s voice. It was a complex construction, twists and turns around a large room, and activated by an old-fashioned switching box, which brought the whole thing to life. That box seemed truly magical to me. Looking back, I think I might have expanded the size of the railroad construction in my imagination, and made it into something it was not, a fairytale land where tiny people came alive at the flick of a switch and trains always ran on time.

The boiler also took on aspects of the fantastic, of magic and the unexplained. My grandfather purchased a valve or controller or some other kind of thingamajig, a tiny little box that would somehow enhance the performance of the boiler, and told us that a small Japanese was working down there. In my mind this meant that a small man was actually working inside the boiler, throwing switches and splicing cables and shoveling wood chips. It wasn’t until years later that I understood what he had actually meant.

There was one other place in the house that truly belonged to my grandfather. His chair, in the corner of the living room right in front of the TV. He would sit there, stuff his pipe with tobacco and smoke. Always that smoke.

My grandmother passed away in 1984. It was sudden, and by all accounts very peaceful. By then they had moved out of the house and to an apartment. I have fragmented memories of the night the call came, and remember nothing of going to a funeral. Perhaps my brother and I were deemed to young to attend.

It’s been over twenty years and my grandfather is still around, just a few years shy of a hundred. There’s a theory that men rarely last long after their wives have passed away. Whoever coined that theory hasn’t met my grandfather. The river of life has simply parted around his blocky frame, and only started eroding him in recent years. And he still smokes.

In many ways the smell of pipe smoke is more a part of my memories than any visual input from that house. It permeated everything, and followed my grandfather wherever he went, like an extension of his body and soul. Movies, model trains, the dogs, the yard, everything is secondary to that smell. It has come to represent a feeling of contentment and happiness, the essence of family and summers, and the youthful innocence that is only a memory now.


This text was written a few years back for my creative writing class. I unearthed it from the depths of my hard drive today, like hidden treasure, and polished it a bit. I'm posting it today, since my grandfather Olof, now 98 years old, is in the hospital, and is in a bad way. He's lost 20 pounds in two weeks, and is deteriorating. Knowing him, he's probably furious at the thought.

He is the last of that generation left in my family, on either side. I love him dearly, and writing this now, I feel like crying. I hope he goes in peace.