Nur die Liebe und das Wetter

Out of Asia

2009-09-01T13:26:28Z

A rushed notice for the two people that I suppose still stick with this poor, dusty thing - I'm out of Asia, out of censorship and online again! So, thank you to everyone who didn't disown me, especially those who barely knew me to begin with anyway - posting will commence again as of today! Yaayyy!

cabaretcarousel @ 2009-01-04T01:25:00

2009-01-04T01:28:54Z

Arrgh. Urrgh. Still seething over here. How dare they.

Avast! A picture!

Back to studying for me. I have over 500 characters to memorize before Wednesday oh joy.

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-12-31T03:52:00

2008-12-31T04:06:56Z

Just as I was getting into posting on a regular basis, the PRC ups and shuts down access to livejournal, just as abruptly as last time. It's a damn shame, I'd just found a few interesting communities and DIY people. Actually, it's terrible - this browser takes ages to load and again I've found myself cut off from everything that's happening. Auuurrrgghhh!

Not much to say, is there. Celebrating Christmas alone and on a different continent has been an interesting experience. By that I mean dull - there's nothing here to indicate that today really is the last day of 2008, the Chinese celebrate their new year on January 26th. I suppose we make our own luck, but it's difficult when you're supposed to turn up to school during Christmas and New year's, exhausted from envying all the people that are actually able to celebrate.

My hair's a right mess and my ego suffers accordingly. Arnór sent me the wrong haircolour and you can't dye over henna with other colours than red henna. So I have three things to choose from; shave it off right now, grow it out over a period of 2 years or wait 2 weeks and hope that Arnór won't make the same mistake again. This is the lousiest Christmas ever.

Still, I'm in China, and that in itself is awesome.

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-12-14T16:22:00

2008-12-14T08:34:14Z

Yahoooo!

Through sheer force of will the poetry book cover is 85% finished. I have yet to add the ads and the neon signs, but as soon as I get this out of the way I can focus my energy on something more constructive. Like the upcoming Chinese exams.

..that I acn finally see the end nearing.

Every window painstakingly installed, every base carefully calculated (is it obvious I almost failed Math?), etcetera etcetera. Now onto bigger concerns - how am I supposed to send this from China to Iceland without a scanner? I'll be damned if I have to photograph it..
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cabaretcarousel @ 2008-12-12T16:51:00

2008-12-12T08:56:19Z

Finally I seem to have reached a comfortable limbo in redecorating this page. I've thrown out most of the old icons and created the new ones from scratch and in the end I went with a cranberry colour palette because it feels like I've done every colour there is at some point. Coming soon: pictures of the poetry cover illustration (which incidentally is taking me <i>lifetimes</i> to finish.)

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-12-06T11:44:00

2008-12-06T04:05:57Z

Hello,

I was going to share illustrations from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, but figured it would be less of a hustle to show them via Victorianweb. So, I bring you a few of Kipling's finest with his own commentary:

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) is probably best known for having written Jungle Book. He was the nephew of two great, late Victorian painters, Sir Edward-Burne-Jones and Sir Edward Poynter, and won the Noble Peace Prize in 1907. His illustrations are influenced not only by late Victorian illustrators such as Aubrey Beardsley but also Japanese prints and American folk art, with Kipling's delightful humour permeating every single one.

"THIS is the picture of the Cat that Walked by Himself, walking by his wild lone through the Wet Wild Woods and waving his wild tail. There is nothing else in the picture except some toadstools. They had to grow there because the woods were so wet. The lumpy thing on the low branch isn't a bird. It is moss that grew there because the Wild Woods were so wet. [Just So Stories, p. 164]"

HERE is the picture of the Djinn in charge of All Deserts guiding the Magic with his magic fan. The Camel is eating a twig of acacia, and he has just finished saying 'humph' once too often (the Djinn told him he would), and so the Humph is coming. The long towelly thing growing out of the thing like an onion is the Magic, and you can see the Humph on its shoulder. The Humph fits on the flat part of the Camel's back. The Camel is too busy looking at his own beautiful self in the pool of water to know what is going to happen to him. Underneath the truly picture is a picture of the World- so-new-and-all. There are two smoky volcanoes in it, some other mountains and some stones and a lake and a black island and a twisty river and a lot of other things, as well as a Noah's Ark. I couldn't draw all the deserts that the Djinn was in charge of, so I only drew one, but it is a most deserty desert. [Just So Stories p. 20]

A decorated initial T, from The butterfly that Stamped, Just So Stories

A page decoration from The Elephant Child, Just So Stories.

Parsee Pestonjee Bomonjee sitting in his palm- tree, The Elephant's Child, Just So Stories.
"THIS is the Parsee Pestonjee Bomonjee sitting in his palm- tree and watching the Rhinoceros Strorks bathing near the beach of the Altogether Uninhabited Island after Strorks had taken off his skin. The Parsee has rubbed the cake-crumbs into the skin, and he is smiling to think how they will tickle Strorks when Strorks puts it on again. The skin is just under the rocks below the palm-tree in a cool place , that is why you can't see it. The Parsee is wearing a new more- than-oriental-splendour hat of the sort that Parsees wear; and he has a knife in his hand to cut his name on palm-trees. The black things on the islands out at sea are bits of ships that got wrecked going down the Red Sea; but all the passengers were saved and went home.
The black thing in the water close to the shore is not a wreck at all. It is Strorks the Rhinoceros bathing without his skin. He was just as black underneath his skin as he was outside. I wouldn't ask anything about the cooking-stove if were you. [p. 32] "

Again, these were all taken via Victorianweb.org

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-12-05T12:48:00

2008-12-05T05:12:25Z

Please bear with me while I change my journal style. I have no idea what I'm doing here.

Anyway, it's that time of year again and I guess I'll be drawing and sending out this year's Christmas cards before Monday. And I need to finish the poetry book cover this weekend. As soon as I've done my homework of course. Plus there're the shoes that I need to take to the repairman and that art biennial I have to see before it closes.

A sad side-effect of being so busy are all the unfinished sketches I keep scattering over the chairs and the tables, so I thought I'd share a few to give them a slight sense of purpose before I either throw them away or store them away till the end of time.

A mermaid selling starfish, reminiscent of the one on my deviantart. Maybe I'll redo it someday.

A sketch of, maybe even the basis of the poetry book cover. Don't ask - this was entirely his choice.

A preliminary sketch for a Christmas card..

A snotty neo-victorian that never really turned into anything.

A page from my sketchbook - shrubbery to use with Tuvstarr.

Anywhos, I have heaps of stuff to do and will have to finish the rennovations on my journal tomorrow. Am I the only one who finds the new system surprisingly complicated?

A Lady from Shanghai

2008-11-28T09:23:46Z

Well, I wasn't thrown into jail after all - I had no time to post again before popping off to Shanghai, and now suddenly access to livejournal has been enabled. I've heard that a few pages get blocked every now and then so I don't know how long this change of heart will last. But one can hope

China is, obviously, very very different. The people are much nicer than in Europe, and the weather is so much better and the architecture is of course astounding. I have the internet to make up for the music I lost along with my ipod, and I'd say it didn't take long for me to settle in but I do miss Europe every now and then. The cafes, especially. The art galleries (my job!), dressing in style, making clothes on my sewing machine. The music. Going to concerts (but let's face it, no one back home listened to Cinema Strange or Neubauten either) . It's those little things. I'm not complaining, though - if I'd had an sense in my little head I'd have learned an European language that didn't take decades to master. The scariest part about being here is not knowing what you're supposed to do with a degree in Eastern-Asian studies when your heart is in fashion and design.

The credit crunch is affecting us all a bit too much. Back in September it wasn't too bad but early October it all collapsed in one day. Some of my classmates can't afford to stay the second term, and the cost of living has trippled for us. Shanghai is only a three hours drive away but going there for the weekend is now a huge deal, and only open for those who believe they can afford it. We go to Starbucks once a week (I spent the better half of October going cold caffeine turkey). The list goes on.

And it's because of this whole credit crunch that I'm starting to second-guess my bulletproof plan about going to Gothenburg and finishing my degree there, to be able to straight into goldsmithing or fashion afterwards. You can't learn it back home, but if I go there I'll end up stranded and poor. But it's too soon to worry.

So that's a little update. Thanks to everyone who kept me on their friends lists - I've missed livejournal, so I daresay I'll be updating often. But I always say that. In the meantime, here's a young Nick Cave taken on my camera.

A first look at Tuvstarr!

2008-08-24T22:36:37Z

I am superpsyched about the coilhouse magazine! I ordered a copy as soon as they released it, and I hope it'll get here before I leave for good September 5th, but I suppose I can ask mom and dad to forward it and hope that it won't get confiscated-

Anywhos, I distinctly remember promising that I'd put up a preview of Tuvstarr once I got my camera. My teacher still has all the sketches back from the illustration course, but after Brian Pilkington gave me a slim pen nib (back in May?) I started drawing the project over again. So far I've only had time to draw one picture (really, I haven't even had time to colour it) so bear with me:

I'm afraid it's slightly ouf of focus (my camera and I are still growing accustomed to each other :) and the lighting is bad, but the trees are drawn in three shades of gray according to distance. It measures approximately 30 x 16. Now, I have to admit that I'm terrified about adding the watercolours since that's normally when things start to go wrong. So I'm not sure if I'll finish adding the colours before starting on the next page, but we'll see.

Oh, and I found a few pictures back from when I was in the art academy [OF DEATH!] :

An image-on from Vogue Italia (complete with some red paint on top of his head it seems):

A vintage centaur:

The deer prince:

And that's it for tonight. As I said, I'm leaving in only two weeks and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified, but I'll probably have time to write another entry before then.

A small love letter to Berlin

2008-08-24T22:02:15Z

Phew -

Today is my first day off since I came back from Berlin a week ago. Yesterday was Reykjavik culture night - the opening of an exhibition that we'd worked on for days was a success. Hopefully I won't have to work as much overtime but I suspect I'll go back to the church to continue the repairs there. With the obligatory 2 hours-a-day overtime. Grumble.

Anywhos, Berlin was and is indescribably fabulous. It was my third time there, we spent 14 days in the city (albeit in the worst hostel in the History of German and Prussia) and never ran out of new things to try or see - the city is gorgeous and the people (in spite of their general lack of language skills) are all very friendly and helpful. If Sweden fails to lure me for my third academic year, Berlin is definitely where I'm headed.

Anyway, a few of the 900 photos that we took are behind the cut - I'll keep the text to a minimum:

Arnor and some elephants at the Zoologischer Garten. There are a couple of zoos and one aquarium in the city:

A few sleeping flying dogs at the other zoo.:

A photo I sneakily took through the glass doors at the second level of the Natural Museum - the current exhibition focuses on dinosaur fossils so the normal specimen are heaped on shelves behind closed doors, away from the crowd:

The museum also hosts the northern hemisphere's largest bracchiosaurus skeleton - this here's an allosaurus:

The gorgeous Nefertiti, at the Museum of Antiques:

A German statue of Christ from the 14th century. In the 1340's Europe was ravished by the Plague - hence the fascination with death in contemporary art and sculptures.

A plague doctor's cap from the same period:

A Victorian-era puppet, fun and preparatory back in the olden days:

And a few pictures from the M'era Luna festival:

Fields of the Nephilim's Carl McCoy:

And the cuddlywuddly couple:

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-07-29T10:18:00

2008-07-29T10:25:01Z

Well,

I'm afraid I won't have time to read up on any entries since I'm leaving for Berlin in just a few hours. The camera cost me an arm and a leg, and the currency has never before compared so poorly against the Euro that I'll have to live on instant noodles for the next two weeks. I'll be back on the 14th, with pictures from M'era Luna. :)

Fitting for a doomsday prophet:

2008-07-13T21:52:59Z

Your result for The Ohmigod Test...

Satan - Fallen Angel and God of Hell

Satan is rebellious fallen angel and in the eyes of many an evil jinn.His name is a synonym for the Devil. He rebelled against god by deciding that all creatures should worship themselves instead of the Authority. He raised an army against the army of The Trinity and lost. This act got him banished him from the kingdom of heaven.His last main act on earth was to convince the first people that knowledge was more important than blind worship. The Mother of All was tempted by the knowledge that was promised and delivered by him. That was his greatest gift to mankind though it came with the sacrifice of leaving paradise.In the bible he is known as "the god of this world"?(2 Cor. 4:4) and at the end of the earth he shall join his minions in his own kingdom of fire.Those who worship him worship the ideals of Equality with the Gods and with each other, Knowledge, and Power

Take The Ohmigod Test at HelloQuizzy

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-07-13T21:45:00

2008-07-13T21:47:54Z

Here is a copy of my recent post on gothfash - if anyone can be of help it would be greatly appreciated.

On the ethics of modifying vintage garments-

I am very sorry if this does not belong here - please delete with my apologies if that is the case.

I have this gorgeous black cotton dress (very special fabric though) that I bought at an outdoor market in Amsterdam a few years ago, with croquet lace detail that exposes the skin on the waist and vertically down the legs, backside and frontside. The sleeves are short but end in a wide, fan-like lace at the elbow – it has an overall 70's feel to it, and could practically have been made to my measurements. However, the skirt is very long, a little too long, and it makes the dress a little overwhelming, hence I never wear it. Now, if I were to cut the skirt in half and sew the bottom part to the waistline, I would make it shorter, more fun and much more practical, and I would definitely start wearing it more (starting with M'era Luna later this August). However, since I don't know its history (for all I know it could either be a gothic party dress from the 70's or an authentic vintage widow's dress with a tragic history – there's no label), I'm a little scared of modifying it. But I don't want to use it unmodified. What should I do? Has anyone had a similar problem (of respecting a garment too much or just giving in to plain superstition)?Thank you!

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-06-15T12:22:00

2008-06-15T12:22:44Z

AAAA!!! AAAAAA!!!!AAAAAAAAAAAAAFIELDSOFTHENEPHILIMARESCHEDULEDFORM'ERALUNA!!!!!!!!

Paranoiia Paranoiia

2008-04-27T10:00:04Z

Woke up at 8, didn't really try to fall asleep again. Not so worried about the History exam anymore in spite of everything. My teacher calls and asks if I'd mind going on TV to talk about the course. For him, anything, I think as I politely accept, knowing I have three cold sores sprouting like leprosy on my bottom lip. I hate going on TV.

To get a visa to Asia I'll need a copy of the flight ticket, a couple of documents from my school, a few vaccination shots and a certified copy of doctor's examination report, complete with blood results. The ticket costs a fortune and the shots are not cheap, but what's really keeping me awake is the thought of going through the examination and discovering that I really have Aids. Hysterical, I know, but I've been obsessing so successfully about it lately that I've actually lost weight. Not that it's very likely that I have that or any other disease for that matter, but a) being left behind because I were denied the visa and b) knowing that I'd probably given it to all my family too would be just too dreadful not to obsess about.

Onto illustration: I've finished the two first pictures of Tuvstarr and just thinking about them nauseates me. I can't watercolour to save my life, they don't sell pens smaller than 0.8 (which is far, far too big) and working under this pressure with a new deadline every Wednesday has made these pictures a couple of clumsy, generic blobs of naively blended colour and a mess of lines depicting nothing. The lows I've stooped to actually include buying a book on watercolour and dissecting the pictures to find out what's gone wrong and maybe that's where I fail - suddenly approaching them like a scientist and not an artist. University has changed me.

I give up. What's really bothering me is the fact that I have gone through communities for months now, looking at other people's illustrations (not yours, himmapaan, yours are all gorgeous) and thinking - 'knowing' at the time, high on my arrogance, that I could do so much better. Flipping through childish sketches painted with hysterically bright acrylics and chuckling to myself that I'd show them. Really, I'm ashamed, disappointed and disillusioned, and that's what's really wrong. Have I been overestimating myself in other areas as well? Is that the reason that I didn't get the scholarship? The pictures that I've given to teacher over the years to express my gratitude and admiration, were they, too, miserable disasters that I was too high to notice?

Meh. Obsessing is hard work, and I should get back to studying. Maybe I can treat those pictures like sketches and put them on ice till the course is over (although I have to show two ready pictures, a cover and the final text, then start over again this summer. Or at some point. Or whatever.

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-04-25T23:02:00

2008-04-25T23:04:45Z

I woke up this morning at half past six to Arnor climbing over me, speeding to the bathroom. Then followed the noise of something toppling over and a terrifying crash. And Arnor started groaning.
I ran to the bathroom and found him on the floor, white and curled up and writhing slightly, inanimately. He stared straight at the ceiling with eyes half-closed, groaning helplessly with regular intervals, completely out of this world. Something trickled, noisily, down the shower drain. Needless to say, my heart stopped.
I don't know if the man at the 112 was trying to calm me down or get things crystal by asking me the same questions over and over again (like 'which doorbell', 'is he still unconscious') but it made me thoroughly hysterical. Why wasn't he listening? My boyfriend lay naked with his skull bashed in on his bathroom floor, possibly paralyzed from the neck down, and he insisted on getting down the name of the street for the fifth time. Eventually the ambulance came and they took him away without a word.
It may have been a seizure. More likely, sudden loss of blood pressure followed by him blacking out. His head didn't hit anything and the tests they put him through showed nothing abnormal. Anyway, he's fine now. Thank all the gods.

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-04-25T22:55:00

2008-04-25T23:01:23Z

On a merrier note, I got 9 for my essay on 20's Shanghai, and 9.5 on the presentation that I was obsessing about back in February. I'm just happy that the teacher was impressed.

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-04-21T09:30:00

2008-04-21T09:32:58Z

Oh, and I didn't get the scholarship. Apparently, I came third for recommendation which is a little less understandable considering it's a city of 150.000 people on an Island (and I'm at the top in a class of 9 people.)

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-04-12T09:16:00

2008-04-12T09:25:07Z

It's official. I love my illustration teacher. We were walking out of the school together Wednesday night and she said ' You know, I could really seeing you do this for a living.' I told her that that was very nice of her but that she hadn't seen any of my pictures (indeed, maybe one or two, and a handful of unfinished sketches). She replied that from what she had seen, I would make such an excellent addition to the 'flora of illustrators here.'

I've got Tuvstarr all planned, all laid out and sketched and I've finished translating the story. I need to figure out the size of the book and do the sketches 1:1, so I might be able to start today. Until then, here's an old picture to prepare the soil.

Harold Pinter on the two kinds of silence -

2008-03-27T12:31:12Z

There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed. This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it. That is its continual reference. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its place. When true silence falls we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.

We have heard many times that tired, grimy phrase: 'failure of communication' … and this phrase has been fixed to my work quite consistently. I believe the contrary. I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else's life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.

I am not suggesting that no character in a play can never say what he in fact means. Not at all. I have found that there invariably does come a moment when this happens, when he says something, perhaps, which he has never said before. And where this happens, what he says is irrevocable, and can never be taken back.

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-03-24T10:43:00

2008-03-24T11:13:17Z

Groan-

Still vulnerable from the realization that I won't make it to the Neubauten concert in London, I came across a note on 80s_goth announcing another Vagabond night in London. That, and there's a Deathrock Magazine release party in New York coming up. How on earth am I supposed to maintain a style if everything involving it is happening elsewhere? I'm going downstairs to throw out some old clothes before the nostalgia kills me.

I only have one chapter left to read and a page to write before the start of classes on Wednesday, so I seem to have kept to the schedule. I've got rough sketches for Tuvstarr, but I still need to translate the text and her name (I just can't be known for calling her Fífa although it would be perfect.) Also, I need to design the cover and the title page but everything I've done so far looks suspiciously alike Bilibin's Firebird layout - I'll need to come up with something different for the covers.

In other news, the Icelandic Krona crashed legendary last week, increasing the value of the dollar from 62isk to 79isk, and the Euro from 90isk to 125isk ,and I have yet to buy my ticket abroad. I'll probably be paying over 10,000isk more than I would have before the crash. Great.

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-03-11T12:06:00

2008-03-11T12:09:50Z

When I knew what I wanted (he's such a dreamboat):

And when I answered honestly:

Admittedly I'm playing Dynasty Warriors 4, not 5, but either way Playstation 2 is such a great way to waste time when you're supposed to be studying.

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-03-06T15:27:00

2008-03-06T15:43:52Z

I'm meeting an artist and a teacher from the art school (who's also a distant relative) in an hour to talk about Iceland's Art Academy. Apparently she's heard quite a few dismal speeches about it but she'd like to hear it from someone who's experienced it firsthand. While a part of me is relieved and excited to get it all out of my system and tell her exactly what I think about that dreadful place, the rest of me is somewhat on guard - it was a long time ago, and I remember that there were more people who thought it was awful, but I was the only one who quit, so targeting me for being too soft will only be too easy. Still, shes nice and I know she's actively campaigned for artists' rights before. I'll have to wait and see how it all turns out.

Also, we decided at the art school last night that it'd be best for me to illustrate an old tale and not something I've written - they said I had a lot of good ideas, and they are indeed very helpful, but I don't have much time left and definitely no time to constantly review or rewrite a piece. So I'll use this course to learn how things work and maybe a few years from now I can do something original.

On Art and Academics

2008-02-27T20:13:29Z

Presentation on Shanghai went, well, spectacularly - they liked the music, made an effort to ask questions and although I talk fast and muted, the teacher seemed to approve. In retrospect, it wasn't the grade that I was anxious about, nor standing in front of everyone, but rather letting myself down after a month's work, talking too fast and too quietly and skipping passages like I tend to. So all in all, I'm satisfied (not to mention relieved that it's finally over and nothing left but loads of homework and an essay to turn in.)

On to bigger concerns. I'm currently at art school, trying to come up with an idea (or rather, work further with my original idea) but I've been stuck in my tracks for two hours now. It's not exactly writer's block, but more of a lingering anxiety that university is taking over my life, and with it all my creativity. I'm telling myself that I'm just drained for today (and that's probably it) but I can't help but wonder, can you only be a scholar *or* an artist and not excel equally in both? If so, was I wrong in ditching art and going for the Chinese? If so, will it be too late to go back in three years time? And if I can only excel in one, how will I choose?

I read somewhere that choices are the modern man's curse, that all the talk about freedom of choice is our greatest misunderstanding, and it's precisely these infinite choices that prevent us from actually choosing something and living happily with it. Right now I've never been as anxious to pick up the brush and actually start somewhere, on something. On anything.

cabaretcarousel @ 2008-02-18T23:48:00

2008-02-19T00:22:28Z

Phew -

I'm up to my ears in homework - so far I've covered three fourths of the philo but haven't started on reviewing the Chinese yet. Both the exams are due next Thursday and I daresay I'm cautiously optimistic about them, if actually interested in the subjects for once.

Our teacher emailed us last week and asked for assistance during the upcoming university-presentation day. I showed up late, but he was delighted all the same - turns out only one other student (out of 14 people) had bothered to show up at all. He was genuinely happy to see me, paying me the odd compliment, and that really ...well, it made me very happy. It's honestly stayed with me. Not that I expected to be scolded or anything, but I didn't even think he'd remember my name, much less treat me like an equal.