So Nettavisen, Adresseavisa, VG, Dagsavisen and Aftenposten all went to see Dylan in Oslo last night. Though reading their reviews it’s quite difficult to believe that they really went to the same concert.

According to Nettavisen, it might be time for Bob Dylan to retire. This because he delivers a “standard blues repertoaire” in the first half of the concert (and, as we all know, he can’t sing, so what’s the point?) and though the concert improves in its second half, the audience still does not get any of the old Dylan classics. Which makes you wonder whether the journalist has heard Guns and Roses singing Knocking on Heaven’s Door and been told that it was a Dylan song and so, since that was not played, assumed he did not play any classics.

According to VG it was all a bit so-so, part good, parts not so good. It’s hard to take this review seriously, though, because it contains the lines:

“Desolation Row” er blant undertegnedes absolutte favoritter. Hvorvidt Dylan dro låten i går kveld, er nokså uklart, men jeg velger å stole på en kollega som mente han dro kjensel på den.

(“Desolation Row” is one of my absolute favourites. Whether Dylan did that song last night is uncertain, but I chose to believe a colleague who claims to have recognised it.) If you can’t even recognise your own favourites then maybe you you should go home and listen to some records, preferably some bootleg recordings so that you might learn that a song can be played in several different ways and still be the same song. Desolation Row isn’t a favourite of mine, but I had no problems recognising it.* VG also runs the review under the heading “Dylan in A4” which is an odd judgement, seeing as what I would expect someone to mean by “A4” in this connection is an artist who comes on stage and delivers the 13 songs from the last record exactly the way they sound when studio recorded. And that, certainly, was not what Dylan did.

Dagsavisen, Aftenposten and Adresseavisa seem to have kept up with Dylan a little better. According to Adresseavisa Dylan delivers a series of “weird” versions of his old classics in a heavy blues rock style. And the journalist appreciates this, but acknowledges that it might not be a concert for anyone, you might need to be a bit of a Dylan expert to enjoy it all. According to Aftenposten there were a few low points to the concert – they did not like the version of Boots Of Spanish Leather at all – but at least they do not start spouting nonsense. Dagsavisen, on the other hand, claims that Boots of Spanish Leather was beautiful, but seem to think the concert was only so-so even so. (Still, they acknowledge that Dylan so-so is miles ahead of pretty much anything else, which is fair enough.)

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* The playlist before the ‘encore’ seems to have been the same in Oslo and Karlstad and included: To Be Alone With You, Cry A While, It’s Allright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), Boots Of Spanish Leather, Desolation Row, Things Have Changed, Highway 61 Revisited, Like A Rolling Stone, Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, Don’t Think Twice, Shooting Star, Forever Young, Cats In The Well, All Along The Watchtower, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Every Grain of Sand, Summer Days and It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue. In Karlstad we also got a rather splendid Mr Tambourine Man.

But we didn’t need to talk about it. Really good things don’t need words. No. The best thing about really good things is that you can just sit there with someone else and not say a word. And you both know.

I’m reading Carlos Eire’s “Waiting for Snow in Havana” at the moment, and that’s a quote from half-way through the book. I just thought it was rather good.

This weekend’s been lovely. I never quite understood before why my parents think spending time at the cabin, just the two of them, is so great. Being a bit dim, I guess. Now? I think they have a point.

So, that’s why there’s been no posting this weekend. Been at the cabin with Martin. There’s hardly even mobile phone coverage there, and no electricity or running water – so no computers at all. Probably very healthy. And I can’t say I missed them, either. I can’t really say I missed anything at all. Oh, ok, so it would have been nice if the gas container had actually contained gas (thanks a bunch, dad). It would have made cooking a whole lot easier. However, we made do with the wood-fired stove. The weekend, as usual, was far too short. Reality intrudes again. But what can you do?

Incidentally, this is where we were last night:

Bob Dylan in Karlstad. Dylan is the real king of rock and roll (no, really). I came close to throttling another member of the audience, but other than that it was all good.

This guy, just to explain my urge to throttle, talked incessantly (and loudly – obviously had to make himself heard over the music, didn’t he?) when he was in his seat. There was a row between us, but no one in those seats, so he was, effectively, immediately behind me. I say “when he was in his seat” as he, and his company, were out four or five times during the two hour show. What sort of person goes to a Bob Dylan concert in order to spend much of it away from the audience and the rest talking? Surely it would have been a lot cheaper to drown out a record at home? I amused myself with thinking up lines to use if I lost control and ended up yelling at him – my favourite being “You know that guy down there on the stage-like thing, making all that noise, making it difficult for you to be heard properly? It might seem unreasonable to you but some uf us actually came here to listen to him.” Never did, though. Once I reached the point when I would most likely have snapped he started spending most of the time away from his seat. Lucky for him, really.

A stun-gun. That’s what I want for Christmas.

There was also the girl next to us who talked on her mobile several times during the show. I didn’t actually hear her, though (strangely enough she seemed to chose the most noisy number to talk through), so she merely made me giggle.

Honestly. People.

Well, we all know it’s a drug, of course. Via Susan at Easy Bake Coven, some interesting images of webs woven by spiders on drugs.

Double espresso, anyone?

Congratulations to Shirin Ebadi on the Nobel Peace Prize.

I am just so relieved that it did not go to the Pope after yesterday’s news that the Catholic church in Africa claims that condoms do not help prevent AIDS.

Now, it’s obviously ok for the Catholic church to claim that using condoms is a sin. I may disagree with their interpretation of the scripture, but it’s their prerogative, as guardians of a belief system, to believe whatever they like. However, it is not ok to exacerbate a continent’s most serious problem (except for the minor one of being screwed over by the western world for centuries) by telling lies. And though a lot of people go about telling lies a lot of the time, the Pope really should know better, and at least he should not be rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize.

So ‘scuse me, John Paul II, could you please tell me where in the 10 commandments it says that using condoms is a sin? In return I’ll show you where it says “Thou shalt not lie”, you seem to have overlooked it.

A game?

Absolutely – gorgeous
Utterly – butterly
Vile – George W. Bush
Ronald – Reagan
Baby – Katharine Hepburn
Salt – pepper
Diet – Seafood
Pine – bath
Mars – War
Mobile – Avril Lavigne

How did I do?

1. Do you watch sports? If so, which ones?
Nope. I occasionally watch fencing and snooker, but that’s very occasionally. I also tend to “look in on” the olympics and such, but never for long enough to actually see any results.

2. What/who are your favorite sports teams and/or favorite athletes?
Uhm. None.

3. Are there any sports you hate?
Most of them. Ok, not really. In fact, I don’t mind the sports in themselves at all, I can even enjoy football (soccer) if I actually sit down to watch a game (though it’s certainly one of the more boring sports). What I do hate is the amount of time spent on discussing the games before and after and the overly thorough analysis of every little detail that “sports freaks” seem to find necessary.

4. Have you ever been to a sports event?
Yes, several. I’ve even competed in the Norwegian Fencing Championships twice.

5. Do/did you play any sports (in school or other)? How long did you play?
Well, as you can gather from q4, I used to fence. Not for very long – three or four years – but I’d like to start again if I could find a club to feel at home in.

Or Tuesdays for that matter. This one, for some reason, feels like it ought to be a Friday. Never mind. I thought I’d do this 80ies inspired 3xThursday.

1. What are your 3 favorite movies from the 1980s? Why?
(You’re actually expecting me to come up with three films and remember when they came out?)
Dirty Dancing – Why? Because it’s sooooo good (and oh, so cheesy).
Annie – I loved it when I saw it at the cinema and I’m still a sucker for “orphan finds a home” soppy stories.
Die Hard – Never saw it in the 80ies, but love it. It’s the perfect action movie.

2. What are your favorite types of music from the 80s? Who were your favorite artists?
Types of music? Pop, I guess, with some rock. Loved Bon Jovi then (still do, except the last album which seems to have nothing going for it whatsoever, bit of a disappointment, really). Most of the stuff I bought was list-pop type stuff. Nothing to be very ashamed of but no “masterpieces undiscovered by the rest of the world either”. Actually, until the mid-eighties (1986 to be precise) I only listened to Norwegian music, such as Lillebj?rn Nilsen. My first focus is, and has always been, lyrics, so I didn’t start listening to music in English until I learnt the language.

3. What major events of the 1980s do you remember?
Olof Palme being assasinated. Hard to miss that one. The Alexander Kielland oil platform (which toppled over a few years earlier) being towed ashore – mainly because I had a boy in my class called Alexander. The Berlin wall coming down. Big one that. I was very “into” anti-apartheid as a teenager, so the events (big and small) leading up to Mandela’s release (in 1990) are still with me.

And Tianamen Square. Does anyone who was old enough at the time not have the picture of that lone student in front of a row of tanks etched into their brains?

I listened to one of my favourite songs this morning – “Kråka på taket” by Di Derre – and suddenly realised that though it’s still a great song it has completely lost its relevance. A very odd feeling. Other songs, of course, have also undergone a change lately. As an example, Vonda Shepard singing “I Only want to be with You” used to be something I hoped it might be possible to feel, not quite believing it was ever going to happen, but wishing for it nonetheless. And suddenly it’s pretty much a constant soundtrack – occasionally drowned out by whatever my brain – apparently – finds interesting at the moment, but there in the background ready to reappear once the disturbance has gone away.

Other things have changed to. I never thought I was particularly possessive. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve never had any occasion to before. Nowadays I find the phrase “Mine, all mine” running through my head with frightening frequency.

Voice in my head: Climie Fisher – Love Changes Everything

Perhaps one ought to learn Gàidhlig?

1. If you were to go on a diet (not that you should, babe, you look marvelous), which of the “fad diets” sounds the most appealing to you?
I’ve got a postcard on my fridge saying “I’m on a seafood diet, I eat everything I see.” I think that pretty much accurately sums up my attitude to fad diets (and most other forms of dieting).

2. I only ask, because with the holidays coming up, there will be a lot more food in our house than usual. It tempts me. Maybe if I exercise I can loose some now, and eat then and have it all balance out. Do you get much exercise?
Much? No. The Scottish Country Dancing helps. As does the fact that I live up four flights of stairs – no elevator.

3. (snip) Have you ever raided someone’s junk pile that was left out for the garbage truck? Or gone dumpster diving? What did you find?
Yup. No very exiting finds, though. A couple of picture frames out of one. A book out of another.

4. Also in that same dumpster was the most awful shade of bright green carpet you’ve ever seen. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe it if I showed you (and I will try to get a photo). Do you have any memories of ugly carpeting in your home or someone else’s?
Most of the places I lived in in England had horrible carpeting, but then I hate wall-to-wall carpets anyway, so it wasn’t necessarily the design of the carpet that was at fault. In Worthing, though, the living-room floor was covered in these brown and yellow swirls, looking much like something that ought to be flushed down the toilet quite quickly before stinking up the bathroom completely. Not nice, but you learn to ignore it.

5. As summer draws to a close, it means fewer outside chores. One I won’t miss at all is mowing the lawn! What summertime chores will you be glad to see go away for the winter months?
Ah. The joys of not having a lawn! Having no garden basically means I don’t really have any summertime chores. The one thing about summer I’m glad to see the end of for a few months is the warm nights that prevent me sleeping.

6. Of course, it is hard to mention fall without at least touching on football. Do you have a(ny) favorite football team(s)? Do you and your family root for the same teams to win?
Huh? What’s this football you’re on about? Seriously, I couldn’t care less, whether it’s American football or soccer. All one to me. My family, well, they’re another kettle of fish entirely.

7. (snip) If you were to visit California, are there any Bloggers you’d like to meet up with?
I don’t think so. I’m not actually entirely sure where the bloggers I’d most like to meet are located, but I don’t think any of them are in California.