I made her day!!

I love Postcrossing ... !! :-)

Here is a great example of why. I got this address on Wednesday last week ... Sarah lives in Massachusetts and IMO has a really good profile. She makes it easy to pick a card for her, and she makes it fun to do so, too. I always try my best to pick a card the recipient will love - that's a big part of the fun of it for me - but sometimes it really isn't easy. If you're on Postcrossing, please make sure your profile is filled out and gives a good impression of you and your interests! It makes it SO much easier to find the perfect postcard for you! :-)

Anyway ... I thought of probably about a dozen cards that I could send to Sarah. :-) But looking at her favorites wall, I found this card ... and then I just immediately knew which one to pick. This one:
Johnny Depp photographed in 1990 by Herb Ritts. It took me forever to find it (I have soo many postcards now ... don't start ...) but I knew I had it somewhere and I did finally find it. It arrived today - she just registered it half an hour ago, and she immediately added it to her favorites. In the email I got letting me know that it had arrived, she says she loves it and I made her day. Now that is why Postcrossing is so awesome!! Sarah, if you read this, you made my day with your message. :-)

The card's already been favorited three times in just this short while. Whee! :-D

Keanuquote

I used to have nightmares that they would put 'He played Ted'
on my tombstone.
Keanu Reeves

Mona Achache: Le hérisson

I was supposed to go to the Christmas market at the Folk Museum yesterday, but I didn't - it was just too cold, 15 below, I just couldn't force myself out in it knowing that I would be spending hours outside in that temperature. Brr. Anne Ida agreed, so we decided it'd be better to do something indoors instead and went to the movies. :-)

Good choice, because instead of freezing our noses off at the Museum, we got to see an absolutely wonderful movie. One that was even better than I'd hoped. :-) I've read the book this movie is based on - you can see my video review of it here; it's in Norwegian, I'm afraid - and I absolutely love it. So of course the movie was a potential disappointment ... especially as it's a very literary and cerebral novel, and it's a little hard to picture how it could make the transition to the screen with much ease. But it has!! Very impressively, Achache is a debuting director, and she also wrote the screenplay, based on the wonderful novel by Muriel Barbery. To be honest I can hardly believe that she hasn't made anything but two short films before this.

What I had read about the movie previously had made me think that it was only based on the book and would be likely to stray rather far from it. But that's not the case at all. We were both very pleasantly surprised (Anne Ida has read the book too and she loves it as well :-) by how faithful to the original story the movie is. The main alteration is that while one of the main characters in the novel keeps a diary, in the movie she is obsessed with filming everything around her. An obvious and necessary change. In other respects they have managed to preserve so much of the novel, I was very impressed. The tone, the wonderful characters, the fascinating microcosm of the setting, the humor ... pretty much everything. I loved it. :-)

In fact they have almost stayed too true to the book, because I had a small hope that they had changed the almost unbearably sad ending ... but no.

A low-key, slow-paced movie with fantastic characters SO beautifully portrayed. Hardly any action but still packed with impressions. One of the best movies I've seen all year. :-)

The book is available in English under the title The Elegance of the Hedgehog; in Norwegian it's called Pinnsvinets eleganse.

Quote of the Week

Errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum.
Lucious Annaeus Seneca

My new hero

An annoying article, or whatever I should call it, in Dagbladet ... on the occasion of the happy fact that the lineup for the 2011 Melodi Grand Prix is now complete. MGP is the national Eurovision selection contest here in Norway. This journalist has seized the opportunity to slam the contest, of course. Sad ... but also fantastic, because one of the comments on the article is so great. My translation of an abridged version:

'MGP returns as Norwegian pop music's most bizarre recycling station.' And Dagbladet returns as uncritical butcher*. We have to accept reality. The Norwegian music industry is minute, we're hardly producing any major artists in this country. The Norwegian charts reflect throughout the entire year the fact that it is foreign performers who dominate the music market in Norway. The period when MGP takes place is among the few times during the year when Norwegian artists and songwriters do well in the charts.
MGP is a unique opportunity for performers to show themselves off - if only they have good enough songs. Or yes - I can think of one reason why someone would be afraid to sign up: Because media outlets like Dagbladet will tear both them and the song to shreds because it is an MGP entry. They would be called out of date and past their prime. In the same way that Dagbladet contributes to torpedoing the careers of aspiring performers by calling it a job centre effort and a recycling station.
How about letting the songs and the public response determine whether MGP is viable?

Kristian Nicolai Stakset-Gundersen, your name may be over the top, but you rock. :-)

*In Norwegian we use the term butchery for any severe criticism of anything, music, movies, political decisions, anything. I know, tasteful, isn't it.

A great musician

What is a great musician? One of my favorites of the breed, the extremely unique Ingrid Bjørnov, has a wonderful definition of this. In her opinion, a great musician is a person who knows how to play the accordion, but who refrains from doing so.

I'm not sure I agree with her, because according to this definition she herself is not a great musician. ;-)

Another instrument that gets a bad rep is the banjo. Deliverance really didn't do those things any favors. But sometimes they pop up and do a pretty good turn. The reason I bring this up is that I went to see Øystein Sunde's show at Dizzie tonight with my parents. Now there's ... if not a great musician, then certainly a great performer. :-) He had a banjo in his show, but he didn't play it himself. ;-) It was a really good show, very funny, I laughed till my face hurt. The only thing was that it looked like he wasn't going to play Kjekt å ha, which would have sucked, cause I love that song. But of course he did play it, as the last encore. :-)

Anyway. It was a good show, I'm glad I got the chance to see it. There were some interesting experiences. I'm not very adventuresome musically, so this may be just me, but it's the first time I've heard Beethoven's fifth symphony played on banjo.

In closing, the reason why we went to see the show: Happy birthday to my father!! :-)

I want one ... !!

Emys orbicularis, the European pond turtle. Cuteness!! I want one ... !



From this year's trip to the Nordic Ark, obviously. :-) Widescreen here.