You’ll have to bear with me through another poem – well, those of you that understand either Italian (possibly archaic Italian, what do I know?) or Norwegian, anyway. Somewhat less appropriate to anything at all, but maybe that is just as well. Yeats was really just scary.

Anyway, I’ve just been adding some books to my database, and one of them was Dikt fra antikken til vår tid, an anthology designed primarily for students of comparative literature, I suspect, but then, I am one so that’s allright, isn’t it? Anyway, you know that lovely gift certificate I got to spend at Akademika last weekend? Well, I’ve been oogling this book for years, but it’s just a bit on the expensive side (well, it used to be when it was only available in hardback, the paperback is more affordable), so I thought this was as good an opportunity as any to get my hands on it.

The brilliant thing about it, besides it containing some very good poetry is that for all other languages than the three Scandinavian and English it has the poem both in the original and in translation. And this sonnet by Petrarch happens to be one of my favourites, the translation by Sigmund Skard seems to be very good (and I don’t even like SS’s own poetry much).

(First, the Italian:)

S’amor non �, che dunque � quel ch�io sento?
Ma s’egli � amor, per Dio, che cosa et quale?
Se bona, onde l’effecto aspro mortale?
Se ria, onde s� dolce ogni tormento?

S’a mia voglia ardo, onde ‘l pianto e lamento?
S’a mal mio grado, il lamentar che vale?
O viva morte, o dilectoso male,
come puoi tanto in me, s’io nol consento?

Et s’io ‘l consento, a gran torto mi doglio.
Fra s� contrari v�nti in frale barca
mi trovo in alto mar senza governo,

s� lieve di saver, d’error s� carca,
ch’i’ medesmo non so quel ch’io mi voglio,
e tremo a mezza state, ardendo il verno.

— Francesco Petrarca

(and the Norwegian – which, by the way, is “New Norwegian”, and not the language I actually write at all)

Er dette ikkje elsk, kva kan det vera?
Og er det elsk, å Gud, kva er det så?
Om godt, kvi er det daudebeiskt å få?
Om vondt, kvi er det endå søtt å bera?

Vil eg det sjølv, kva gagn kan tårer gjera?
Og vil eg ikkje, kvifor græt eg då?
å daudeliv! å frygd eg flyr ifrå!
Eg strir imot – kor kan du endå tæra?

Og vil eg sjølv, kva tener tårer til?
Slik stormar høgt mitt hav med skumkvit båre,
og styrelaus i skrale båten stend eg.

Så vesal er min visdom, dåre, dåre!
at ikkje sjølv eg veit kva sjølv eg vil,
eg frys i varmen, og i frosten brenn eg.

— Petrarca, transl. by Sigmund Skard

(First and last two lines in translation on this page.)

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (having rejected the idea of The Dubliner as unsound considering the mood I’m in and the massive need of getting to bed early due to Michael Moore having ruined my sleep completely last night) I thought: What more appropriate than some Yeats?

I thought I’d find a new poem to gush about (new to me, I mean) but came to The Second Coming and realised there was no getting past it. It’s too good. It’s way too appropriate. Not to St. Patrick’s, possibly, but certainly to Bowling for Columbine. So here we go:

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot here the falconeer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand:
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

— William Butler Yeats

Voice on the stereo: Bjarne Brøndbo singing Va det du Jesus (equally appropriate, unfortunately)

What with all this socialising and meeting actual real people out in the real world, I feel the need to reaffirm my status as a geek. Does the fact that this cracks me up help?

This font walks into a bar.
Barman hits him and says:

“We don’t serve your type in here…”

So he called the serif.

(Originally found in the comments at not so soft, it has been hanging around in my notepad draft file for a week or two. I laugh every time I read it.)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, by the way. A pint at the Dubliner would be in order, however, I suspect I am not the only person to have that idea today, and I’m not in a state to deal well with crowds, not even genial, Guiness-drinking crowds. If I could think of someone who’d come and have a pint with me on short notice, I may change my mind, however.

Voice in my head: Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow – “I put your picture away”

I’ve just seen Bowling for Columbine. It should probably be mandatory watching for all US citizens. You might then understand why the rest of us are not convinced that bombing Iraq to smithereens is going to help anyone at all.

It’s a powerful documentary. It reminded me of a lot of numbers and facts that I have known but had forgotten, or repressed. It made me feel sick to the stomach. I still feel sick to the stomack, in fact, and I badly need a hug. I want my father. Why do I live so far from my parents? I want to be three years old and be told that it was all a bad dream and it’s ok now. I don’t want to be all grown up and have to deal with the thought that tonight another Iraqi child will die in a bomb raid or from malnutrition or hunger, and in the US yet another person will be shot dead with a gun for no particularly good reason at all. In fact, rather more than one person, 11000 divided by 365 has got to be more than one.

11000 people every year? And you still think owning a gun will protect you? After 11 September, gun sales went up 70%. Could someone please explain to me what sort of good it would have done any of the victims had they owned a gun? Random numbers keep flashing before my eyes and they are all equally depressing.

Right now I wish I didn’t know anybody in the US. I know some terrific people in the US and I really do not want any freinds of mine to live in the kind of society that produces the statistics I’ve just seen.

Please be safe. And please, please, stop thinking that the world is something you need to protect yourself from.

And please, someone, come give me a hug. Anyone?

Voice in my head: Sting – “There’s no such thing as a winnable war, it’s a lie we don’t believe anymore. Mr. Reagan says: We will protect you. I don’t subscribe to his point of view.” (And that goes for you, too, Mr. Bush.)

It is! Really! It’s all sunny and mild outside, and I had my coat open and my scarf undone (mind you, I’ll probably get a cold, now, and that would be inconvenient, but who cares in such weather?) and really didn’t want to go sit in the office. I did anyway, though. But now I really do not want to stay any longer so I’ve transferred some files on to my laptop and will (no, really, I will) do some testing at home tomorrow.

Voice in my head: Murmurs “Still wanna know what it’s like to be a butterfly”

Via said forum, a test (in Norwegian), “How much do you know about sex”

My result:

Wow!

Du vet virkelig hva som er hva og hvor, både på din egen kropp og det motsattes kjønn.

Og enda bedre: Du vet nøyaktig hvordan du skal bruke kunnskapen din også!

Vær så snill å ikke skryt altfor mye av dette resultatet, det er så flaut for oss andre…

Which is really quite funny.

Well, that was fun.

I’ve just been to Rød Tomat with a whole bunch of people from this internet forum I occasionally frequent (and no, I’m not telling you where it is). One of them, a girl who tends to be broke a lot, had had money from her mother – due to said mother, apparently, being relieved that she was meeting some actual people for a change. I asked whether the fact that she knew all these actual people from the internet had been omitted from the explanation. It had…

Ooo, off to listen to “Liten og grø;nn”, I was early, so naturally I did end up stopping by Platekompaniet.

Voice in my head: Øystein Sunde, still, but now singing “Hvis dine ører henger ned” for some obscure reason

Let down by Kazaa.

I’ve got an old favourite running in my head, Øystein Sunde’s “Liten og grønn”, and I want to listen to it. Now, somewhere I have “Sunde på boks”, which is a best of collection from before CDs were even invented (or at least before they were something anyone had actually heard about, let alone seen), it’s three cassettes in a box, which makes it an awkward shape to store with other cassettes which is why it isn’t and I have no idea where to find it. I know I saw it somewhere recently, but where? It used to be one of my most highly prized possessions, actually, I can remember being thrilled when I got it as a Christmas present. Does that mean I ought to have taken better care of it? Probably. I mean, it’s in my flat somewhere, and in good condition too, I just have absolutely no idea where.

In the meantime, I thought that Kazaa might solve my problem in so far as let me hear the song. But, no. And it’s frustrating.

The problem, you see, is that this is one of those songs where I know most of the lyrics, but I can never remember how it begins and I am not 100% sure of the order…

Minus the first line(s?) it starts:

Og har kroppen stappa full av folk og fe.
Her er posten som skal fram,
og aviser likedan,
og en livredd visesanger på turné.

Morn, morn, Sandnessjøen, her er jeg!
Grønn og liten, sjøsjuk, men fornøyd.
Jeg er en Twin-åtter på vei fra Mo i Rana,
og har hundre mil igjen, før jeg blir fortøyd.

And then we definitely have:

De’kke lett å være grønn når man er liten,
men det er verre å være bleik når man er stor,
folk skal jo reise så fordømrande fort, nå for tiden
og NSB står fast i gamle spor.

Mange mener at jeg er for gammel,
en trofast tjeners tid er snart forbi,
degradert til håpløst gammelt skrammel,
en tegnebrett-fossil til evig tid.

Men når det stormer fra sydvest,
da liker jeg meg best,
jeg bryter håndbak med Odin og Tor.
Så når SAS ikke vil,
og når Braathen ikke tør,
kommer jeg dansende rundt torghatten som før.

But in which order? And I’m sure I’m missing something, too. The last refrain, however, is quite positively:

Morn, morn, Sandnessjøen, her er jeg!
Bli med opp en tur, skal du få se
på en Twin-åtter på vei fra Mo i Rana
som har to-tre år igjen,
før’n er passé.

Which all means I might have to drop by Platekompaniet on my way home and buy the record. Or go home and dig through the whole flat until I find the box.

Voice in my head: (obviously) Øystein Sunde (I wish he’d sing the bits I can’t remember too, I’m sure he knows them well enough)

Friday! (Now, if I only didn’t have to work this weekend…)

1. Do you like talking on the phone? Why or why not?
It depends. I like talking on the phone to people I know, and know well. For me to actually pick up the phone voluntarily and call, however, I don’t only need to know the person I’m going to talk to, I also need to know who else might be liable to answer it… A bit of phone-phobia, yes.

2. Who is the last person you talked to on the phone?
One of the IT-people at FLO/IKT.

3. About how many telephones do you have at home?
About? I have one “stationary” which is connected to the phone net, one which isn’t, my mobile (the working one) and, uhm, two working but account-less mobiles.

4. Have you encountered anyone who has really bad phone manners? What happened?
Uhm, not really. Well, my mother usually does solitaire on the computer while talking to me, which isn’t the best manners ever, but only noticeable when she does something stupid and says “oh no” a propos of nothing…

5. Would you rather pick up the phone and call someone or write them an e-mail or a letter? Why or why not?
Going by the majority, write an e-mail or letter. The only people I can think of at the moment who I actually phone voluntarily are my family, Janne, LindaW and LindaS, Tone and uhm, Andreas, I guess.