Michael Henrik Wynns skrivedagbok

[Michaelhe]

Mitt navn er Michael Henrik Wynn, og jeg liker å skrive. Jeg driver også en liten nettradio som heter historyradio.org. I denne dagboka vil jeg poste ulike tanker og ting jeg skriver og har skrevet på norsk og engelsk. Jeg lager også lydbøker av og til som jeg poster på youtube. Noen vil kanskje oppdage at enkelte ting jeg skriver har tematikk fra eget liv. Det stemmer, og de er ofte skrevet  i ettertid for å hjelpe meg å takle ting. Og de er forkledt slik at ingen skal ta ting personlig. Av og til, som i fortellingen nedenfor, ligger det litt filosofi i bunn, ytterligheter settes bevisst opp mot hverandre. Novellen under ble skrevet i 1999. Men endret litt fram, og tilbake da jeg mange år senere fant den fram igjen.

Her er en lydbok av en tekst jeg har skrevet, samt et vers.

I lyse stunder skriver jeg ofte litt lettere ting. Diktet nedenfor ble skrevet for et yngre publikum

"Chaplins hatt"
Med hatt og kjole gikk Chaplin blakk
gjennom byen hvor hans elsker satt og drakk
Så kom ektemannen, illsint og skakk
og slo bort Chaplins hatt.

Chaplin skvatt og sparket uten snakk
den gamle grisen vinglet og knakk
sin stokk før kelneren rakk
å kjenne Chaplins kjekke frakk.

Så kom karen farende fra sin krakk,
Kledd i sin lange anorakk
og kastet Chaplins flotte hatt
ned i grøften som den verste kosakk,

«Gi meg min hatt !» sa Chaplin og spratt
Nedover rennestenen, så langt som den rakk,
til føttene for en frue, som i siste liten trakk
Chaplins hatt fra en frådende kloakk.

En adelig polakk reddet Chaplins hatt,
og satt hans hjerte i sjakk,
og han kysset henne som takk:
og hun satt Chaplins hatt på skakk.

Michael Henrik Wynn

Og her er eventyrdikt jeg har skrevet lest av en annen (jeg leide ham inn pga den mørke stemmen hans)

 

Endret 31. januar 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

For fem-seks år siden ble jeg kjent med det jeg antok var en nigeriansk arbeider i en skrivegruppe på facebook. Han het Ify, og vi ble gode venner på nettet. Han har aldri spurt meg om penger, men jeg sendte noen kroner av og til i god tro. Vi snakket mest om forhold han hadde, og hva jeg gjorde i mitt liv for å finne meg noen. Etter ett år begynte han å snakke om en roman han hadde forfattet. Det store poenget var at hans kjæreste ikke forsto hvor bra den var. Til slutt overtalte jeg ham ti å sende den til meg. Så prøvde jeg å finne en språkvasker, men ga til slutt opp og skjønte at den eneste som gjør så mye arbeid gratis for helt fremmede er meg selv. Så i fritiden syslet jeg med dette. Da jeg kom inn i romanen skjønte jeg at han hadde dårlige engelsk kunnskaper, men at komposisjonen var god. Så jeg gikk systematisk til verks. Selve prosa teksten er derfor bygget på hans grunnstamme. Men i noen dikt havnet han i problemer den gangen. Så der måtte jeg omdikte, og i disse er det litt mer av meg. Men det er hans univers, for en slik fantasi har ikke jeg. Jeg kan ikke skrive den slags fantasy.  Men dikt kan jeg, Så her er tre av mine omdiktninger. Jeg skal legg ut det tredje senere. Stammen i fortellingen er Ifys, men jeg måtte omstrukture, så de fleste av metaforene er mine. Ify har tilegnet romanen til meg, så dette er ingen hemmelighet.  Nå har ify studert, blitt mer selvstedig som skribent, og kan forfatte svært gode ting uten min hjelp. Jeg har aldri møtt ify, så jeg kan ikke si all verden om hvordan han er ansikt til ansikt. Uavhengig av ham, så synes  jeg det å jobbe med en fantasy tekst var mer moro enn de fagtekstene jeg vanligvis har jobbet med.

1.

Throw your swords to the ground,

Here comes our royal crown,

I saw him through the window pane,

Only wine will make my sorrows wane -

La La La La!

La La La La La La!

Bend so low –

When you see the bow,

And drink,

Why would you ever even have to think?

 

Once there was a singer

from a far-away misty clime

Whose voice was a wonder to all,

Ever beautiful and charming, unaffected by time.


Under mountain shadows he sang

Often beneath flowers' shade,

Even when his voice was failing, it echoed and rang

across the starving valleys – divine harmonies for those in need,

Indeed, his voice would never fade.
 

In both valleys and dells they sang his name.

But like a flaming fire, he could not control the fame.

For in his tiny heart there swelled a pride

He drove through the villages with boxes of gold by his side.

From north and east, south and west,

they all began to envy his garments and his chest.

His name spread far and wide, across mountains and seas.

None knew the secret of his music, except himself and few flower bees.
 

Drunken one windy morn, he staggered to the flowers' shade

At the foot of the towering trees he brought out his harp.

“My humming bees,” he said, “sing your songs and then depart”.

He struck the strings twice with his lifeless thumb.

But there was no harmony, only noises for the numb.

And now he would soon have to sing,

This Friday at the court – for nobles, queen and king.

“Oh, Iri, my goddess of music!” he shouted angrily.

“None will ever match my charming voice,

I have to settle for bees, their hums and such agony.

They buzz in admiration or by choice

But I may not be needing their song soon

– maybe even before the end of this full moon.

My voice will then surpass what nature can assume.”

Up in that flower tree there was a lone bee

who came to suck the early morn nectar,

And so busy was she that she failed to see

The drunken singer lying below – an undeniable heckler.

But hearing this from him, she turned cold

And at once flew to their hive queen

to relate where she had been

and, truth be told, what stupidity she had seen.

And to her own credit, she added salt to the story,

or lies of tremendous power,

and they spread to every bee in every corrie

– lies to a bee, you see, is like the nectar of a flower.

Without it, honey will not be sweet.

The bee queen immediately ordered a curfew:

No ceremonies in her street.

Was she not the queen of all her bees?

She would take no insults from men!

This man was neither winged, nor a friend.

This two-legged creature they treasured for his voice,

females drew him to their womb,

yet he steals away at night with their honey,

while vultures circle about – as if their hive were a tomb.

It was far from funny to be left without a choice.

 

The drunken singer waited in vain that morn for the bees to hum,

The shades grew longer, the clouds gathered – soon the rains would come.

No bees appeared, no songs were heard from the flowers of the tree,

only the footsteps of the soaked singer in the puddles

running from the rain – trying his best to flee.
 

The singer did not dare to sing before the king,

so soon he was shunned.

He ventured far and wide beyond the realm,

wishing his precious bees had hummed.

But his voice no longer reeked of honey,

and there was no rest beneath an elm.

So his sanity slowly slipped away.

If you travel far into the woods,

you can hear his laughter to this day.

 

2.

Steadfast servant you’re free
Because your bones are growing old
Free like birds and monkeys in the tree...
You can fly, jump and merry till you’re cold.

From the inn to the castle,
From the castle to the battle,
From the days of my prime to this day...
I’ve been wandering never-ending,
To the cities far away,
Never thinking if the dusk is fading.

I have never ever hid
From my Keeper’s bid
Even when the stars were bleak,
Or when the faint moon failed to shine,
When her silvery gleams were weak,
Or when the midnight bells began to chime.

3.

Return from your hiding places Perian,
with your sons and your daughters to crown Galian.
Tell the world that in the end we have freedom,
like a panting cheetah, rush to your kingdom.
Freedom and justice have prevailed,
our enemies and their cronies have failed.
We shall drink and sing and be merry.
We are all lions now – with no adversary.

There are drums of liberation on the tired savanna.

Endret 2. februar 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

Jeg skriver også artikler om litteraturhistorie og essay. Her er et jeg skrev i 2008, tror jeg og la ut på booksie.com. Det ligger også mange andre steder. Jeg har også skrevet og laget er hørespill for ungdom, men det det kan jeg nevne en annen dag.

1.

President Bush & The Quiet American
Why did president Bush quote Graham Greene, an author who was labelled a “communist sympathizer” by the US government and kept under surveillance for decades?

The 22 of August 2007, president George W. Bush enters the podium in a convention center in Kansas City. He faced the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a weathered crowd of old soldiers. «I stand before you as a wartime President» he declares before he begins talking about the Vietnam War. «In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called The Quiet American. It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. Another character describes Alden this way: ‘I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.’»

Bush’s reference caused much confusion around the United States because the author, Graham Greene, had been kept under surveillance by the CIA because of the publication of the novel. Conservatives in the 1950s disapproved of his analysis of the situation in Vietnam. The protagonist is the British journalist Thomas Fowler who is drawn into a triangular love story battling for the favors of a young Vietnamese girl. His competition is Alden Pyle, a young man with visions for the future of Vietnam, who later turns out to be an intelligence agent directly implicated in a horrible bombing massacre.

According to The New York Times, The Quiet American became a bible for journalists covering the Vietnam war because it predicted and exposed American policies in the country several years before they became generally known. But the Republican right loathed the fact that the hero was an aging British upper class reporter and the villain a young manipulative and naive American.

The villain becomes good
Oddly enough, only a few years passed before the controversial novel was filmed by Hollywood director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Mankiewicz was himself a part of the right wing, dubiously connected to the McCarthy movement, which at this period in history was engaged in their communist witch-hunts. During the work with the manuscripts Mankiewicz contacted none other than Edward Lansdale, a CIA operative who now was in charge of American operations in Vietnam. Soon the perception spread that Lansdale was the real life model for the villain in The Quiet American.

In the 1958 movie, the Alden character was thus fittingly played by America’s proudest son, Audie Murhpy, the most decorated soldier in American history at this time. Murphy had made a career in Hollywood. In this heavily altered adaptation, the villain becomes good, a victim of a communist conspiracy. Alden Pyle is in fact no intelligence agent at all in Mankiewicz’s version, but a toy manufacturer who happens to be in Vietnam for humanitarian reasons.

Assaulting the author
When Graham Greene discovered what was about to happen to his novel, he was dumbfounded, but he was unable to stop the project for contractual reasons. “One could almost believe.” Greene stated, “that the film was made deliberately to attack the book and the author.” Later it has become obvious to everyone that the US was present in Vietnam at this time, and that Graham Greene was correct in his portrayal of the situation.

Norman Sherry, who has written an extensive biography on Greene, points out that Greene had left Vietnam before Lansdale arrived in the country. Consequently he cannot be the real life model for the Pyle character. Many years would pass before Hollywood again focused on The Quiet American. The war in Vietnam ended, and slowly but surely the wounds of a bitter period started to heal. A new acceptance of the sufferings of Vietnam veterans was on display in movies such as The Deer Hunter, Rambo and Platoon.

A more truthful adaptation
The Australian Philip Noyce therefore decided to make a new adaptation of the controversial novel. He felt that the time now was ripe for a more accurate adaptation of Greene’s old classic. He cast the veteran actor Michael Caine as the British protagonist, a role for which Caine would become Oscar nominated. The new movie was produced Miramax and was completed in 2001.

Then, in 2001, it happened: the United States experiences a horrible terror attack in New York costing 1000s of lives. Again patriotism was rife, and yet again the desire to defeat your enemies on foreign soil became public policy. Americans now had to form a united front. Miramax panicked. They feared that the film would resurrect the memories of the Vietnam era. “The film can never be released”, Harvey Weinstein, a Miramax executive declared. “My staff says it is unpatriotic.” Michael Caine and Phillip Noyce feverishly lobbied for the release of the movie, but told the press that the film was “as good as dead”. After much persuasion, The Quiet American was released even so, perhaps as a result of the attention that Michael Caine’s excellent performance attracted. Oddly enough the film proved a financial success in the US. This ill-timed triumph showed that American attitudes towards the Vietnam war have changed, and that it was possible to release a considered reflection of foreign policy issues in the wake of 9/11.

In his speech to the veterans of foreign wars in 2007, Bush demonstrated a newly found detachment from the Vietnam era, and he probably attempted to bring an old matter to rest. He may also have tried to undermine that comparison between Vietnam and Iraq that some claim is obvious. But Bush’s reference to Graham Greene still has a false ring to it because most of all the story of The Quiet American, is a story about misuse of art for propaganda purposes and denial of foreign policy objectives.

Michael Henrik Wynn

Her er et annet jeg skrev nylig

2.

Was Agatha Christie really an original writer?

If you look at the statistics, Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have been sold in billions of copies, and some of the movie-versions have won academy awards. That Christie was a genius, I think is undisputed. The numbers speak for themselves. But I think the nature of her genius has been misrepresented.

If you look at her characters, they are not very original. Some say: “Well you cannot show me the exact source in which Christie says that she was inspired by others?” But that is besides the point. Even if she was not, the characters are still not original.

In 1920, Christie published The Mysterious Affair at Styles, her first novel and her first Poirot story. Poirot was a Belgian first world war refugee detective with a Watson-like side-kick, Captain Hastings. In 1910, however, a major writer at the time, A.E.W. Mason(1865-1948), a man whom everybody knew, published the novel At the Villa Rose, a novel featuring the French immigrant detective, Inspector Hannaud. There are huge similarties between the two, but also some differences. In addition to this, another famous female writer at the time, Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868 – 1947), created the detective inspector Popeau and Frank Howell Evans(1867–1931), a minor Welsh writer, created Monsieur Jules Poiret (yes, you read correctly). All of these detectives were french speaking refugee detectives, some even with similar names as Poirot.

Let us now move on to Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s second iconic character. In the US they have a now forgotten crime fiction queen, Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935). In 1878, a decade before Christie was born, she published the novel The Leavenworth Case in which she introduced her spinster detective Miss Amelia Butterworth. She was then featured in several novels and stories, and Green was a best-selling writer in her own day, writing 40 novels and many short stories (only few with Amelia Butterworth) Like Christie she was a great plotter. In some ways, Miss Marple is Amelia Butterworth solving Chestertonian crime puzzles in a rural idyll.

I could mention similar precursors to Tommy & Tuppence. But why is Agatha Christie then not exposed as a plagiarist? It is because her talent is undisputed, and lay elsewhere. She composed stories brilliantly. And it is actually the composition of the stories that make them so great. Her characters were sometimes a little flat. It is the puzzle and the way it is presented throughout the story that captivates the reader, not her analyses of motives. The motives for crimes are in fact bizarre sometimes, even contrived. Psychological complexity was almost sacrificed at the alter of these other elements. When you read an Agatha Christie crime story, you are rarely left with any feelings of disillusionment or misgivings about the world. Even if it is a piece of crime fiction.

So, can any writer who just took elements from his or her contemporary age and molded them into best-selling stories be a genius? Yes. Just look at the other name at the top of the list of the best-selling writers of all time: William Shakespeare. In fact, almost every writer does this to some extent.

Endret 4. februar 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

Mesteparten av tiden skriver jeg litt humoristiske ting, med en seriøs bunn

1,
Children of the World Unite!

The best thing about critical journalism is that you get to shed light on all the world issues without solving a single one. A cynical attitude towards life will come in handy in this respect.

These were thoughts that went through my mind the other day when I understood that my four year old nephew was part of a capitalist conspiracy to steal food from poor children in the East. The little bugger sat quietly on the floor playing with toys manufactured by Disney. My line of reasoning went as follows: a generation ago the entrepeneur Walt Disney produced a product with world wide potential, and on the back of this success he conjured up an international mega company who specialised in satisfying the imaginative cravings of brats and toddlers. A network of connections was then established in order to exploit cheap labor accross the planet, and a propaganda machinery of the Goebbels-type was supposed to brainwash the kids in order to produce artificial demand. This was the height of capitalism: the marked mechanisms exploited a concept based on talking ducks in a sailor suit.

And who were the losers? Was it the children who were to interpret the world through an absurd dream in which half naked animals communicated through talking bubles in a cartoon? Was it the employees in the company who never had satisfied their human need for meaningful work? Was it the poor laborers in the third world who were given the option of starving or produce ten centimeter models of Clarabelle Cow?

This was what happened when the bourgoisie was given control of the means of production. How could they talk about inefficiency in the old Soviet Union? The tiny exploiteur glanced at me, happily unaware that he partook in a drama about hunger, prostitution and murder. I had to perform a revolutionary act. I had to awaken the brainwashed multitudes from a condition of apathy, an opium delirium. “Give me Donald and Clarabelle Cow!” “No!” “Yes! Give them to me now!” With teary eyes he was drawn out of his freudian child universe. “Daddy. Daddy. Uncle took Donald!!” “Daddy is not here, and I am not so easily manipulated!” “Stupid. Pee. Poo. Fart” Then he stumbled into the bathroom, slammed the door shut and smeared his father’s hemorrhoid cream all over the sink. It was a victory for democracy.

by Michael Henrik Wynn

2.

 “The Garden Hose”

I have suspected my neighbor of using my garden hose without my permission for many years, perhaps even 20. Of course, I have never asked him about it, even if he sometimes comes to dinner in my own home. In stead, I have begun watching him. I sit by my window in the evening observing him as he goes about his business. My thought was that if I could catch him in the act then I would rush out and finally have my theories proven.

I am retired, and I don’t have much else to do. After having been at my post every morning some years, I discovered that someone else, the neighbor one house up, was in fact using my neighbor’s garden hose in his absence, most certainly without his permission. Clearly, this was extremely immoral, and I would not stand for it. So, I got the idea that if I informed my long hated Nemesis about the fact that his neighbor was taking liberties, the two of them would bring about each other’s downfall.

So, one morning I casually walked up to my dishonest neighbor and mentioned, almost in passing, that I had seen the neighbor one house down entering his house that morning. My neighbor did not say anything, but his eyes revealed a total shock. I was very pleased, and returned to my lookout post.

The next day, I could see my Nemesis peering through his curtains, obviously trying to verify my gossip. He also began walking down the road, looking up at his neighbor’s house in disbelief. The two passed even each other in the street, and my Nemesis gave the neighbor a very nasty look. I almost had to smile.

But what happened then was not what I expected. My Nemesis told me over dinner that he had discovered that the matter was related to a use of a garden hose, and that he had talked with his neighbor one house down, and that the garden hose would be placed in the shed, where they both could get to it with ease. The matter was settled, he said.

This was not what I wanted, so I had to come up with something else in the spur of the moment. “And what about your car?” I asked. “My car?” said my neighbor. “Yes, I have seen your neighbor driving your car while you are away? I thought you had an agreement?” My neighbor was wonderfully shocked, threw down his dinner napkin and ran out the door.

The next morning the two of them were shouting it out on the front lawn. I was hidden behind a semitransparent curtain in front of an open window. I could not see their faces, but I saw the distinct silhouettes of their waving arms and heard their mutual accusations and insults. I almost laughed when my long held Nemesis struck his neighbor in the face. Now it would be a matter for the police, and the courts would be involved. And I was quite right.

I wandered down the road to the neighbor one house down. I have never known him very well. Still, I feel some connection to him because his sister is the ex-wife of my own brother. She is a very nice person, but I have kept my distance out of respect for my brother. They quarreled, you see.

I found him frantically dialing something on his mobile phone. He had a black eye, and was very agitated. “Hello”, I said. “Have you been in an accident?” I pointed to my own eye to indicate what I meant. “No! I most certainly have not,” he said. “My neighbor has gone absolutely insane and has started to accuse me of using his car. It all started with me using his garden hose without his permission. I thought it would be no big deal.”
“No big deal!!” I exclaimed. “Taking liberties with others is a huge breach of trust. And now he has struck you in the face! You must take legal action!”
“I was planning to, but then I thought my credibility would be ruined by the fact that I had used his garden hose. I have admitted this in front of witnesses. But using a garden hose is not the same as using his car. Which is what he is now claiming.”
“Well”, I said. “Your neighbor might not be as morally upright as he is pretending to be. In fact, I may be willing to testify in court to this fact. And as you know, I may be retired. But I have impeccable credentials after spending almost 40 years as a clerk in the legal department of the town property registry. No one will doubt my word”.
“Really? You would do such a thing for me? But we hardly know each other?”
“We do in a way. Many years ago, your sister was married to my younger brother. I have never mentioned it because they argued so terribly, and I kept my distance out of respect for my brother. But I have always liked your sister much better than my own brother.”
“I see,” he said and thoughtfully scratched his ear. “Will you give me a week to think about this. I will do as you say. But I must find a good lawyer. Some are very expensive?”
“Of course”, I said and smiled confidently. “I understand completely”.
I then returned to my home, and had a full bottle of wine to celebrate. Finally, I would be given a chance to confront my best friend about his illegitimate use of my garden hose. The whole world would be able to read the court transcripts a hundred years from now. If there is one thing a legal clerk knows, it is that history does not remember things that are not written in black and white.
A week later, I was informed that a date for a trial was set. Of course, the case was not given priority, so we all had to wait half a year. But it was worth the wait because matters of principle cannot go unsettled.
The two of them appeared in court on opposite sides with each their own suited lawyers. I was seated at the back, and would appear as a witness later. They both knew this, but I had not been too specific about what I was going to say. I had mentioned the hose, but I thought I would air some other flaws in my Nemesis’ character that had annoyed me over the years.
First, there was some legal mambo-jumbo, but then finally the man was on the stand telling the horrific story of the unmotivated violence to which he had been so unfairly subjected. I smiled as he recounted the unsubstantiated car story to the court. “But of course, this is nothing compared to the man who is about to appear as a witness. He always uses this man’s lawnmower when he is gone. And he also sometimes steals his mail.”
“WHAT!!” I shouted from the back.
“Yes, I can confirm this” my Nemesis said. “I have seen this many times. He is always taking liberties. He is not honest. I am very sorry for having struck you. Will you forgive me?”
Then the two of them met in front of the judge, and hugged. The judge sighed. Then, he lifted his gavel and, almost in dismay, struck at the table as he said: “case dismissed”. My two neighbors and their lawyers then left, almost without looking at me.
I sat alone at the back utterly confused. But then I got up and shouted at the judge: “I have NEVER EVER used someone else’s lawnmower without their permission. These are all lies, I tell you!”.

by Michael Henrik Wynn

 

Endret 31. januar 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

 

[Michaelhe]

Some people might notice that I write in English and that I was born a British citizen. But I will let you in on a little secret: I have never lived in the UK! I was born in Lørenskog, spent my first years in Nittedal and lived for 40 years in Tromsø, only leaving my neighborhood once for a student trip to my uncle in Toronto, and a handfull of holidays and short courses. As a teacher in Norway, I moved around a little looking for a permanent position in Norway, but returned to my mother's flat.

My connection to the UK comes from my father, but my mother and father divorced early, and so I did not actually have my father around as a child. However, i had contact with my Welsh grandmother, and i ocasionally visited my father, who lived in another part of Norway. So through family connections, I was  exposed to British culture and when i began to study languages, this was my first choice.

At the university, English is a very important tool. When I got my disability pension 20 years ago; I was persuaded to earn extra cash helping academics publish. But I have always written short pieces on literary history, ever since I worked in the student newspaper. My time in the student newspaper stand out as a period in my life that I actually did something I enjoyed doing. I took it up online the moment I became aware of what the internet could do.

So, since i started university in 1992, English has been the language that I studied and also my working language. But if you draw a circle with a diameter of 3 km around my childhood home in Tromsø, you will see that I have only rarely ever crossed the line. (In fact, even my elementary school, my university and the hospital will fall inside its orbit.)  But for all those years, it had been my dream that I might some day be able to do so. Ironically, the last thing to arrive in my mailbox before I moved from Norway, was a book entitled "Velkommen som norsk statsborger".

Endret 2. februar 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

The Lure of Dan Brown

Detective Johnson was tired after a long day at work. A woman had been screaming at her husband for hours, he had hit her and she fallen down the stairs and broken a foot. Then there was paperwork, lots of it. He sat for hours in front of the PC. Then printed it at dusk and left it in the files. He drove home yawning, and threw himself on the coach exhausted. There was not much light in the apartment, he had strained his eyes in the white hospital corridors. Now he was alone. There were cars in the street. He could not hear them, but their head lights reflected on his curtains as they passed. He made a good cup of tea, got into his best pyjamas, and opened the new Dan Brown novel. There he read the following paragraph:

“The detective arrived at the scene and found the Egyptian hieroglyphs that the serial killer had left in order to lead the psychological profilers to his new victim. There was also a newly discovered map of hidden catacombs beneath the national assembly, in which Russian agents had installed an advanced copper apparatus, resembling Archimedes’ Antikythera mechanism. Would the riddle ever be solved? Why were the hieroglyphs Coptic in origin and not Greek, and where had the serial killer found his text? Because among the ramblings of insane threats and intimidations, there were secret US government codes linked to a mysterious new wing of the Area 51 research center. Forces were now at work which no one could control…”

Then detective Johnson smiled as he lost control and fell asleep.

PS: This is a distilled imitation of Dan Brown, not an actual quote. But I guess nobody could tell? I made an audioversion of this that i use in my radio stream.

Endret 2. februar 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

Thoughts from a Norwegian bus
It is raining outside, small rivets stream down window panes. The bus is quiet as I enter, in spite of the fact that it is packed. Nobody says a word as I take the last seat at the front. I gaze across the alien crowd, and then I say to myself: I wish I knew what they were all thinking?

Then, suddenly, God intervenes in my mind, stating that “due to the uniqueness of my current predicament and the abundance of his omnipotent grace”, he feels obliged to acquiesce to what he sees as a sincere prayer from “a lost sheep”. With “God on my side”, I then turn my gaze once again to the strangers.

There is a man behind me, a young student, slightly bearded and ruggedly handsome. His thoughts center on some exam. He is worried, has he read enough? Being a teacher by training I immediately sympathize, and – forgetting that I am intruding into his thoughts by divine intervention-- says “Hi”. The student is startled, and instinctively places his hand on the wallet in his trouser pocket and thinks “Who is this person? I am almost certain that I am not gay? What does he want?”
Since I am gay, I think: Well, I better leave the man be. I then notice a woman at the seat on the other side of the aisle. Her mind is filled with thoughts of children. She feels guilty about being away from her young ones, and directs an irrational amount of anger at her ex. Instinctively, I say “Do you have many children?” There is an immediate shock in her eyes. She sees herself running down alleys clutching a pepper spray canister. She worries about safety. So, I make myself small, pathetic, harmless. When she realizes that she has control, her thoughts swing resolutely to an opposite extreme: This would never have happened if she were African or handicapped, or fat, she concludes. I give up. As I turn from her I feel her texting her best friend, making me-too jokes about creepy men on the bus.

I step off the bus into a humid afternoon, skip puddles and hurry passed faceless umbrellas to the opening of a cafe. Under the marquise I turn to sense what I assume to be the ghost of Edward Munch floating unseen among a sidewalk throng. I then enter to take comfort in the silent steam and homely smell of fresh coffee.

[Michaelhe]

An open letter from one of the Richest men in Russia

Dear expats,
I am sorry to see that you feel obliged to leave mother Russia. These are difficult times, but I am certain that we will prevail and restore our lives in the end. When I see the news reports from some countries in Europe about inflation and unemployment, my heart weeps. Being a wealthy man born into privilege, I have always felt shame because of my possessions and good fortune in life. Out of the goodness of my heart, I have therefore decided to stage a lottery unlike any ever seen. This will be a lottery in which the prizes are moderate, but the winners are many, a service that should be part of all societies.

Sign up now and win a complete set of drones, including cameras, zoom function, battery chargers, the lot!!! There will be 10 000 winners!

It gives me great pleasure to do this for you, and remind those of you who have settled abroad that mother Russia will always be there for you with open arms, just like any mother should.

Sincerely yours.

Lavrentiy Beria III, Deputy Chairman Gazprom

[Michaelhe]

The Ancient University of Nalanda and it missing students

Between the time of Buddha and when the Mongol hordes poured onto the Asian steps almost a millennia later, there existed an ancient center of learning in India with tens of thousands of students. A Turkish invader left their library in ruins, and its books, like all those unknown scholars, became scattered and forgotten by time.

The present-day Nalanda university library, like the modern library of Alexandria, cannot replace or restore the ancient centers of learning they once served, only honor them. There are about twenty influential teachers from Nalanda listed at Wikipedia. But over a millennia there must have been countless more. Students would have arrived from far and near, books would have been copied and sold. Even if most names should be forgotten, some of the infra-structure of learning can always be deduced from archaeology.

If there are many students, the facilities of learning would tell us about teaching methods. And also about where they came from and how they were recruited, and perhaps went after their studies. If a gigantic stone is uncovered at a mysterious site like, for instance, Nalanda in India or even the much older temple at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, many things can be learnt about the technology and mathematical skills of those who placed it there. And if such skills exist, then they are learnt somewhere.

The study of European Antiquity has brought to light the great minds of men like Aristotle, Archimedes and Hero of Alexandria. Then there is that legendary library in Alexandria that we all know about. Some who have studied history might talk about the one in Pergamon where Galen was educated, the second most famous.

But often these towering institutions are icebergs of a forgotten academic system, a network of learning centers. If academic works were written, they also had an audience. And they were also traded and sold, which means merchants of knowledge. Sometimes even booksellers and agents.

Recently, new lidar technology has stripped away the overgrowth of centuries, in the Amazon and in the jungles of Cambodia. What emerges magnifies the ancient cultures in these areas and their influence exponentially. Their urban arms stretched farther than anyone today could have guessed.

The literature of meso-America was quickly disposed of by the Europeans, and the only source of importance about Angkor Watt is the report of an ancient Chinese emissary. So slowly the rest of the planet is having its history restored, bit by bit. But, do we yet know what might be hidden beneath impenetrable jungles elsewhere, in Papua New Guinea or Congo?

In 1916, a Jamaican arrived in New York. He had been educated in the heart of the Empire, London. His name was Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), and he was the first organizer of a black mass protest movement. He was extravagant, flamboyant and also dishonest. But even if he was eventually kicked out of the US, he managed what he set out to do: awaken the African Americans to the great wealth of unknown cultures located beyond the gaze of the European scholar.

Europeans never spoke about the great sub-Saharan cultures known at the time. In his novel She, the late Victorian adventure writer H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) made wild, but extremely entertaining speculations about the origins of the great stone structures of Zimbabwe. This was needed because Africans could never have managed to construct such marvels on their own. Europe had even swept  the mighty Songhai-empire of western Africa conveniently under the carpet, along with the great libraries of Timbuktu. In fact, even Roman expeditions into sub-Saharan Africa or the sub-Saharan battles of the First World War, have been met with total silence. This was infertile soil for learning and culture. This was the land of naked savages.

One of the countries Marcus Garvey frequently mentioned was Ethiopia, and the Rasta movement would later often refer to him. Garvey himself, however, belonged to an earlier generation. So, when he referred to Ethiopia he had other things in mind.

Today, students are just becoming aware of the great genius of men like Zera Yacob (1599 – 1692) , the Ethiopian enlightenment philosopher, and contemporary and almost equal of Kant himself. But the same comment I made concerning the intellectual celebrities that are known from Nalanda applies to Zera Yacob. Even if Yacob is by no means an isolated character, he towers over a neglected system of learning. Gone with the wind are the other students, their lives and the network that supported them.

Michael Henrik Wynn

https://historyradio.org/2022/11/29/the-ancient-university-of-nalanda-and-it-missing-students/

Endret 29. september 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

My Nigerian friend, Ify, and I sometimes talked about politics. I was fascinated because the world he described was uknown to me. I knew about hunger in Africa, but i did not know much about daily life, and the problems ordinary people face. Sometimes he described mundane situations in which he had encountered policemen, traffic violantions and so on, and he talked about corruption as if it was a natural part of daily life. He also said his home country was deeply divided. I have never been to Nigeria, and in this story I tried to use some of what Ify told me to make a statement about the psychology of some conflicts. Whether it fits Nigeria, I cannot say.

 

 The Lion and the Hyena

A story set in 1980s Nigeria

Muhammed lay quiet in the corner of his cell when police chief Chuwungu and his deputy passed by. They stopped by the door and smiled at his bruises. After all, Muhammed was a muslim, and what they internally referred to as a “B-citizen” in the station. A B-citizen was a person who had been arrested, but for whom they had yet to come up with a charge. Usually, this was done within a few months. But it was not easy because Chuwungu had limited imagination. Sometimes, he claimed they had attacked the police unprovoked, but most of the time he claimed that they were fundamentalists. This was very convenient, because it was both very serious, there were bombings elsewhere in the country quite often, and most importantly, it was impossible to disprove. After all, not even the judges had access to the man’s mind? And most of his criminals were so starved, unclean and agitated when they arrived in court that the judge – who was a neat well-kept and well-fed academic educated somewhere in Europe – frowned with disgust when they took the stand. Chuwungu always smiled at this. Once, however, the judge had sent him a suspicious and irritated look, and after that Chuwungu always wore his fake Ray-ban glasses court, and pulled his cap a little down.

Muhammed was one of those ruffians who became so cocky in their teens that they stood on street corners laughing at the police. Then, of course, he had no choice but to put him in his place. He got some of his men to pick him up one evening while he was out drinking, gave him a real good beating and dumped him in a cell overnight. When he woke in the morning Muhammed was thirsty and bruised. They let him go with a warning.
However, next week, he looked at them with even more spite, and it was then Chuwungu decided that Muhammed was a B-citizen. This was some years back. Of course, the local shop owners would be ordered to be very rude to Muhammed, and he would not be allowed to visit certain areas in which there were girls or entertainment. Chuwungu also made sure that the taxi company in which Muhammed worked cut his salary. And that his girl friend did not offer him sex more than once a month. This was the ultimate insult to any African man, and Chuwungu thought Muhammed would beat her senseless. But he did nothing, which was even more contemptible.

There were many things that B-citizens would not be allowed to do. Chuwungu and his deputy used to sit and brainstorm in order to come up with ways of limiting their options. Someone suggested that they would deny them chicken, or even bush meat, leaving only pork. But this was very impractical because there was no way to keep track of such things. So, he simply dismissed the idea.
Even if Chuwungu was feared by ordinary people, he was not disliked by his own, that is, the other police. He was a tall muscular man with a round face, balled and black as coal. He had teeth, which – by contrast- glittered like ivory when the roar of his laughter was heard. He had six children, and a very proud wife, and who was sometimes seen in the town square in her flowery red robe, negotiating for the price of vegetables. She was not the sort of person who downplayed her position. She looked at you with determination, and she ordered her children about like a true deputy – and she obeyed her husband in everything. For after all, he was the police chief known locally as the Lion of Edo state.

Chuwungu almost never beat his wife. He was a man who appreciated loyalty. And she was loyal in every sense of the word. But, if any shopkeeper was late with their payments, he had no qualms about bringing them in, then locking himself in a cell with the unfortunate later payer, who afterwards almost never repeated the offense.

Muhammed had never been a major concern for Chuwungu. He was muslim, but one of the nameless characters who sometimes drifted into town from the large shanty suburb north of the center. He lived there with his ailing mother and his younger sister. Little is known about his mother’s past. No one in such places had any identification. Those in the center at least had a local id. Very few, except for academics like the judge and people like himself, and the rich tycoons, owned a passport. Chuwungu had never used his passport, it just lay on his office shelf next to his golden bracelet, his sunglasses and the keys to his car.

Muhammed’s mother was fat and frail, and quiet. She had always been this way. 20 years ago she had arrived with some refugees from the north. She married another muslim and they settled in a very modest house in town, and she had her babies. Then suddenly the man left her. Some say they argued and some say he had found another woman. But Chuwungu suspected that he had gone off to join the militants in the jungle. It did not matter because this was ages ago, and all these years Muhammed’s mother had scraped by in a run down shed with her two children. The house she had once lived in had been renovated and extended, and now belonged to Chuwungu’s preacher.

There was no bitterness on Chuwungu’s part against Muhammed and his family. But Chuwungu needed to be respected and feared. If teenagers and twenty year olds were allowed to look him directly in the eye that would not be possible. When Chuwungu drove through the gravel covered streets at night, they appeared in his head lights, dancing in front of women – showing off. When he heard the music from portable radios he often wondered why it was that he had never been this carefree himself. He had been destined for something else, for keeping control and for assuming power. He had always been a large man, and when he entered a room, all murmur had always fallen silent.

Chuwungu had really only begun thinking about Muhammed two years ago when a young muslim from arrived from the north selling cheap Japanese walkmans. Because he was a man from the other side, he ignored Chuwungu’s warnings and struck up a friendship with Muhammed. They were both muslim, but sometimes drank a little alcohol. Chuwungu had begun pondering about how he could drive a wedge between the two so that Muhammed would be kept in his place. After all, a B-citizen should never rise above his station.

One day while Chuwungu was sitting in his office, he was notified of a car crash north of town involving two young men. At first, he did not react. Nobody was seriously hurt, but the car hit a tree and was now a wreck. The officer had been paid on site and Chuwungu would receive his share, so the matter almost slipped by unnoticed.
But upon his return to the station the officer mentioned in passing that the men in the old blue Ford were Muhammed and his new friend. “Really?” said Chuwungu. “I have had enough! It is time I had a talk with this electronics seller, whoever he might be. Bring him in. Let him understand that we don’t like drunk driving in our town. Leave him in a cell overnight, I will talk to him in the morning alone”. The next morning Chuwungu entered the cell, and the following week the seller moved back north.

The dry season had now arrived. The nights were cold, the stars clear and the cracked ground twice as dusty in daylight. Muhammed was often seen in town, in back alleys drinking cheap alcohol. He avoided those areas where he was not welcome, and kept to himself. But he was not sober, and there were rumors that his aging mother was ill. When Muhammed was fired from his job, his sister took up whoring to pay for his mother’s treatment. This made him feel even worse. For earning money was a man’s duty in life. And what sort of man had he become?

Then one day Chuwungu was notified of a robbery. There was no one on call. They had been summoned to the scene of some exploded oil pipe. So, chief Chuwungu answered and drove to the crime scene himself. An old man was waiting for him. He showed visible signs of a beating, and seemed very agitated. “Calm down, old man!” Chuwungu began. “Tell me what happened – very slowly.”
“A young lunatic appeared out of nowhere, took all my money and fled.”
“Do you have any idea who he was?”
“Yes, I know him well. It was that drunk, Muhammed.”
“Muhammed? Are you sure?” Chuwungu almost smiled.
“Yes. I know him well by sight.”
“I see. Don’t worry. We will leave no stone unturned and find him. Get your money back.”
“There is no need to search. He entered that shed over there. He has not come out”. He pointed to a rotting wooden shed, hidden in the shade of some trees a few hundred meters away.
“How long ago?”
“An hour or two.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“No, he is mad”
Chuwungu nodded, left the old man and slowly and silently made his way towards the shed. There was no sound, only night crickets, but the flicker of a small light could be seen through the window, probably an oil lamp. Chuwungu checked the back. There was only one entrance.
He approached the door, stopped and listened. All quiet. Then he tore the door open quickly and stuck his head in. The shed had been used for storage for old scrap metal, and rods and rusty bars were lying about among heaps of paper and plastic trash. In a clearing on the ground sat Muhammed – drunk as hell. He was alive, but only glanced up indifferently at Chuwungu.
“You know what your problem is, Muhammed. You have no respect for authority. You never had”.
“My mother died last night. I could not pay for her treatment.”
Their eyes met, and then suddenly Chuwungu smiled and even laughed. He was a huge man towering above the drunk Muhammed. “So now you finally realize that you cannot change the way things are in this world.”‘
Chuwungu went to the window, and looked out to wave at the old man 200 meter away. As he turned he heard a swish and felt a sharp pain in his ankles. The huge policeman tumbled over, and fell to the ground with a thump. He was not unconscious and realized that Muhammed had swung at his leg with one of the rusty iron bars. It had been a tremendous blow, for Chuwungu felt blood on his hands. He looked up and saw the insane and frightened stare of Muhammed looking down at him. In a flash, the mad man had opened the door and fled into the dense dark forest.

It goes without saying that Muhammed never returned to his old town. He walked till morning, slept by a river and started to make his way north. He thought maybe there would be a better life for him somewhere where there would be more Muslims like himself. He stayed clear of major cities, ate bush meat, drank water from creeks and wells and consumed berries. In the open areas he hitch hiked with lorry drivers and called himself Ali instead of Muhammed. When he eventually arrived at a mid-sized northern town, he first lived on the street. Then he got a job as a cleaner at a mosque, and he rented a room. It was only 11 square meters, but it was something.

A year passed, and Muhammed had the feeling of a new beginning. He had no friends, but he never had anyway. One evening, after he had received his paycheck and was walking home, he took a shortcut via a long poorly lit alley. He was half way through the alley, when a shadow rushed upon him out of nowhere. He felt a sting in his arm, and before he knew it all his money had vanished. He had been robbed.

Returning to the light of his room, he noticed a bad stab wound on his arm. There was blood and pain. At first he wanted to deal with it himself, but eventually he walked 4 kilometers under the crescent sky to the hospital. They cleaned and dressed the wound, put on some bandages, and then he sat waiting till morning in the corridor. At dawn the nurses, the doctor and finally a policeman arrived.

The policeman was an elderly man, wise in the ways of the world. He told Ali not to worry, the culprit had already been caught. Unfortunately, he had bought alcohol for the entire amount.
“Alcohol?” said Ali.
“Yes,” the old man replied. “He was one of those drunk infidel Christian pigs.”
“I see.”
Even if these were cruel words, there was an immediate connection between the officer and the man now calling himself Ali. The old man bought Ali sweet tea, and then they smoked and talked for an hour.
At one point, the man said: “I hear you work at the mosque. That is noble work.”
“I am only a cleaner”.
“But still. It is something. I make an OK living as a policeman. The pay is not much, but it is steady, and there are extra sources of income. My children depend on these, you see.”
“Yes”
“We are actually looking for new recruits. You need a few courses. But the state provides them one by one. You are spoon fed.” He smiled.
“I am not sure if this is my thing…”
Before the old man left, their eyes met again, and there was another moment of unspoken understanding.

The next week, Ali did contact the recruiting office, and the story goes that he eventually did become a policeman. And some years later even the police chief of a small town. There he became known for his violent temper, his cunning and his ruthlessness. Because of the way he compensated for his feeble stature and his utter lack of mercy, they called him “The Hyena”. They say he referred to all his Christian criminals as “C-citizens”.

Michael Henrik Wynn

Endret 3. februar 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

I have posted some cheerful things. Here are some sader  poems. This first poem is not about my mother's death. As far as I know she is alive. Nor is it about my grandmother's death, although she was important in my life. It is actually about how i as child experienced the death of my great grandmother, who was born in the 1890s or even earlier, i think. I still can't believe that I have talked to a person born so long ago. I met her a few times as child. But she was very deaf, but I used to sit and look at her. She did not say much, and I as a child did not have much sensible to ask her. She had many children, 7 of whom were alive at the time of her death. So, the funeral was a huge thing. My grand mother took care of her mother until the end, and this poem in many ways is what i imagined then that my grandmother must have felt.

However, I was sadly mistaken!! For many years later it was revealed to me that my great grandmother had been so strict in her upbringing that many of her children had mixed feelings at that funeral. So, this poem is about feelings that may never have existed. I never asked my grandmother about this. What she actually felt, I do not know.

Acute Deafness

When an old woman dies,
her face is washed in the sand
where naked children play,
the clocks fall silent.
Ding dang dong,
the bells say gone.
Flowers wither
like regular steps over linoleum,
divine choreography, our sincere condolences.

Hysterical laughter in chaotic measure
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Fingers drum like drops of rain on the office desk
while each man reaches for his umbrella:
Can you hear what we’re saying? Can you hear what we’re saying?
About forms that must be completed
because the curtains must be drawn aside
before you can sleep.

by Michael Henrik Wynn

And here is a poem about my midlife crisis, which actually seems like a triffle these days:

The Salesman

A man takes a sip of water
and moves from the bed to the kitchen counter.
The hands of the clock turn
while sun and moon rise and fall
ten thousand times.
When the doorbell rings, he is startled.

A stranger enters the room
“Who are you who intrude on me?” the man asks.
“I’ve come to sell you what you need”
“Can’t you stay for a while?
There are billions of stars in the night sky
and when I look up they make me dizzy.”

“No, I cannot sell you friendship”
“Do you know someone who can come then?
Sometimes it gets terribly cold,
The storms rage outside, the walls creak
shivering between drifts of rain and damp snow»

“No, I cannot sell you love”
“But what can you sell me then?”
The salesman digs in his leather briefcase
“I just sell mirrors,” he replies modestly.
“But my face is wrinkled,
my hair white! ” the man cries
upon seeing his reflection.

“I have only one thing to sell»

by Michael Henrik Wynn

Endret 3. februar 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

The Teddy Roosevelt argument for conservation
It is essential that everyone with balls carry a gun. The bigger, the better. The guns, I mean. But why do we have guns? For shooting wild game in Africa, of course. Hemingway may have thought of himself as a real bull in the arena of life and in the bedroom, but he was only feeble copycat of real republicans. Those back in the days when men were men, and women did not have the right to vote. It is of the utmost importance that we preserve the wild life that we are going to kill. If we do not do this, we will have to take comfort in stationary targets, and the moose - that gorgeous monarch of the forest – may no longer provide an alibi for uzis at the gun shop. I look up in admiration at that giant moose head over my mantelpiece, and see the flames from the fireplace below reflected in thoughtful black plastic bead eyes. I snuggle up under my bear skin on the sofa, toss my mink sneakers to one side, and open The Good Book. I thank the Lord that I am real man in a vast protected wilderness, and that I can rise with the sun tomorrow to chase down yet another un-stuffed species for my million dollar log cabin.

 

17 mai i ville vesten

Vilhelm Mobergs beskrivelse av en 17 mai-tale i en by i midtvesten i 1864:

"Kjære innbyggere, takk for at dere møter opp på denne stolte dagen," sa den vesle mannen på plattformen. "Fordi dette er en høytidelig anledning har jeg avstått fra det vanlige kostymet, og ikledd meg dress. Det flotte byggverket jeg står på er resultatet av gamle Norges beste side: dugnadsånden. Det er post-tjenesten, pony expressen, som har bragt oss plankene uten kostnad, billig treverk som egentlig skulle gå til general Grants hær. Selve konstruksjonen ble gjort av legen fra den lokale sykestua, som på tross av den pågående tyfus-epidemien, har tatt seg fri for å jobbe gratis. Den lokale dommeren har vært så elskværdig å redusere de lokale skattene for å gjøre byggverket mulig. Og sist men ikke minst har redaktøren, Aamund Nilsen, som dere ser smilende med pipa og ølglasset utenfor kontoret sitt der borte fått dere hit i dag. Takk skal dere alle ha!"
I neste øyeblikk trakk bøddelen - som hadde stått skjult i bakgrunnen - i en spake, luken i skafottet åpnet seg, og i løpet av sekunder var den stivpyntede taleren hengt - til stor jubel fra folkemengden."

(Teksten kommer fra den nylig oppdagede Moberg-palimpsesten)

 

[Michaelhe]

 A Political Fairytale
Two politicians hit each on the head with a hammer and became mutually dependent on each other in order to maintain their ideologies. From that moment on their fate was sealed. Any statement that challenged this perception would now count as a betrayal in which a whole world view with its respective electorate would suffer. Then the unimaginable happened one year and unemployment rose to 30%. The two politicians reluctantly dropped the hammer and commissioned their own committees to investigate how their opponent could be held responsible. The committees presented their conclusions to the senate committee on finances, who concluded that their findings cancelled each other out, and that as a result no one was really responsible. Consequently this year’s budget could be passed and the hammer was again raised.
But just at this moment, when the economy was at a breaking point and streets buzzed with discontent, oil was discovered outside Alaska. The two politicians immediately selected a panel to find out how the new money should be spent. At the next meeting of the legislator, a vote was taken on the different proposals, but none of them received a majority. As a result, it was decided that all the money should be burnt and then the hammer was lifted again.
One month before Congress was yet convened, it was discovered that a large comet would hit the earth just before voting took place on the revised budget. The first thing that was done, was to collect all the laws and regulations on one DVD so that nothing would be lost if somebody survived. Then a commission was established in order to find out who was responsible for the fact that the comet had not been discovered earlier. At this point the mood turned slightly tense and everybody started talking about the meaning of life. The assembly soon devided itself between those who felt that life had meaning, those who felt that it did not have meaning and those who questioned the question itself. The matter was then submitted to a vote and those who felt that life had meaning won a narrow victory. The winners immediately rushed for the bomb shelters, the nay-sayers remained seated while the doubting abstainers wanted to clarify the possibility of a national referendum in chambers.
Then it happened that the comet dissolved in the atmosphere. Everybody was very relieved and wanted to go home to their families. When congress convened the next time, two bodies and a hammer was discovered at the foot of speaking podium. The two famous politicians were soon recognized and everybody now realized that they had attempted to speak out of order- without the permission of the Speaker. This horrified every one, and to this day you can read their epitaphs on their tombstones saying they were decent people, but that power had gone to their heads.”
 
Michael Henrik Wynn

 

[Michaelhe]

History

Hidden in the shadow of Napoleon’s stallion,
a mother cries and a father despairs.
Grand schemes and trampling boots
intrude on our rooms and climb our stairs.

You were the janitor standing 40 meters
to the left of Martin Luther King
when world suddenly silenced
and his voice yelled «freedom ring».

You sat on the plains of Africa
before and after the West was known,
with a tired baby in your arms,
under a sun that shone and shone.

You did not know Hitler or Churchill,
nor did you publish your dream:
Invisible footsteps to unvisited graves,
and most of what has ever been.

Michael Henrik Wynn

[Michaelhe]

An apology from the US state department
The US state department wishes to apologize to China for shooting down their unmanned weather balloon that was obstructing airline traffic in US air space. Fortunately, no lives were lost and the aircraft was insured.

The US would like to re-affirm its strong commitment to ensuring reliable world wide meterological data, and president Biden has stated that he is willing to meet with Chinese president Xi at any time for a weather-related conversation. "The US is willing to send any top level official to Bejing to talk about the weather", the president assured reporters at the White House lawn.

[Michaelhe]

Some years back I was a movie blogger, and i even took a course in the history of cinema. I thought it was fun, but eventually grew tired, and now I almost never bother to watch any movies. But I must admit I also acquired quite a lot of prejudices about how stories end up on screen. So, below I poke a little fun at this sort of people. I just like playing with the sentences:

A Hollywood script is a venereal disease
Let us take the hypothetical case of the transvestite Hungarian biker who lives in a motor-home near San Diego. He quit his executive job in Europe, and relocated to the US to make it big. How this happens is of no consequence whatsoever. In his spare time from his new job at McDonald’s he pens a script based on an old but recently re-appraised novel, and starts stalking various movie producers. It so happens that he avoids a restraining order, and corners one of them in a cafe. Just before his green card expires, the newly converted Scientologist wins his jackpot: the script is bought and suddenly he is also blessed by Tom Cruise. The script, however, ends up in a stylish mahogany drawer and gathers dust.

After the divorce of his seventh teen-age wife, the first producer rediscovers the script in his new love's Barbie collection, and is about to bring it to the local flea market when his old brother in-law, a fellow movie producer whom he dislikes intensely, is persuaded to buy it. Being closeted man who uses his brother-in-law’s sister as a beard, the new producer takes offense to the hetero-typical noir protagonist, and decides to replace the masculine and clearly butch hero with a gorgeously robed gum-shoe resembling Julie Andrews. Into the drawer the script goes, and more time passes.

Unfortunately, it is an illusion brought on by excessive make-up, cosmetic surgery and unnatural hair-pieces that gay men do not die of old age. In the present case - believe it or not - it was true! The demise of this particular producer was brought on by a cocaine overdose at a local bathhouse. His son describes his father’s pathetic death-scene in a tell-all. On Oprah, he recounts the tear -jerking story of how this made him lose faith in late his father’s judgment, and why he then sold all his father’s scripts to a genius who applied science to literary analysis, a guru of digital humanities, a man trying to link Hollywood with trans-humanism, cryogenics and Silicone Valley.

The script is analyzed using revolutionary AI and tailored algorithms. Various story elements are tested against focus groups to measure potential revenue models. It may be that the optimal setting for the story is not some Vegas casino, even if this was the intention of a Pulitzer Prize-winning alcoholic. Perhaps a space station would generate more income, and perhaps the Julie Andrews character should not have a car, but in stead an elephant?

Of course, this elephant must be created using CGI, and then PETA and certain special effects companies must be contacted in order to ensure realism, and an ethical and accurate portrayal of the species - and ascertain the per second cost of each animal sequence. Could production perhaps be outsourced to Columbia if the villain in the story resembled Pablo Escobar? Is it possible to exploit this for marketing, or could an appeal to controversy, perhaps involving sexual innuendo and martians, do the trick?

In view of many real, imaginary and self-inflicted expenses, the wizard of Silicon Valley was relieved to discover that the NIH offered a huge grant to any movie producer who might help disseminate knowledge of venereal diseases. Incorporating such information into the dialogue by means of said AI-system, and introducing tasteful cameos of Musk and Trump - and their logos - might offset the CGI-cost and widen target audiences.

However, any naturalized citizen of the United States must avoid contact with judges, even on public transport. Therefore the literary estate must be approached - in some alley, if need be. This hypothetical adaptation of the literary canon came to a permanent halt when lightly dressed invitations to several beach houses failed to prevent a top publishing lawyer from knocking at several doors, rehashing the often repeated truism: “the similarity between Hollywood scripts and venereal diseases will be painfully obvious to all lovers of good fiction. They are passed from person to person socially, mutate and are not really wanted by anyone. Having one in your drawer(s?) is, however, considered proof of virility”.

The project was immediately scrapped, the name of the original author deleted and the script sold in an undisclosed bankruptcy settlement to Marvel, who - according to inside sources online - will re-write it as an episode of Dr Weird, five years from now when “a not named Pulitzer Prize story” finally passes into public domain.

Endret 5. februar 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

Nye rettskrivingsregler
Det er nå bestemt at kakepersoner, tidligere kjent som "kakemenn", nå skal omtales som "hen", og bøyes i intetkjønn. Det blir altså "et kakeperson", "kakepersonet" osv. Og "gi meg hen med vaniljekrem" etc . Universitetet i Bergen, som redigerer bokmålsordboka, omtaler dette som "den viktigste begivenheten i akademia siden etableringen av feministisk isbreforskning".

 

Endret 5. februar 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

Scandals
When I was younger I was a well-meaning gullible sucker. One day, I was watching TV in my mother's living room, and Strauss-Kahn, a French politician installed as head of the International Monetary Fund , was being portrayed as a serial offender and a pig in the national news broadcast.
"How can they put these labels on him after just one such incident!" I told my mother, who was sitting next to me.
"Michael, you should know this," she said, "people never change."
"What do you mean? There is only evidence of one victim now. Where did this generalization come from?"

Several years passed, and I became older and started working online. I had social anxiety, and the internet became a sort of refuge for me. Eventually, a nice African man showed up online. He told me he was gay, but in the closet. He had, however, had sex with several male western tourists. Of course, life in Africa is hard, a struggle for food and resources, and this man had no one in his life to support him, only a tired grand mother, who helped him, but often shouted abuse at him to such an extent that I had to provide comfort. Now, I am doing good, I said to myself. Sometimes my friend had malaria, and then I helped him with small amounts. One day, however, I sat looking at his photo, and by chance my eyes wandered down to his hands, which were barely visible at the bottom of the picture. I magnified the image, and discovered a wedding ring on his finger. Eventually I couldn't trust him, and being a straightforward person I simply told him this.

But then I started writing, and in a Facebook writing group, I got acquainted with another very nice African. We became best friends online, chatted about every day issues, and he really taught me a lot about Africa that I would not have otherwise known. He had written a fantasy novel, 500 pages, which he sent to me. I noticed that the story was well composed, but that the sentences sometimes were ungrammatical because he was not an English speaker. I spent one year fixing the novel part time. I supported him in numerous other ways. Yet, he too behaved so strangely in the end that I felt I could not trust him either.

Was I being exploited? Surely not?

One day I thought about one of my last students as a history teacher before I got my disability pension. It was a young woman who had written so many strange things in her exams that I reluctantly had to flunk her.
She met me in the corridor, and explained to me with eyes pleading with entreaty that I was ruining her chances of pursuing a career. She had many valid reasons for not having done her homework. At that point I stopped, studied her face, but just as I was about to give in and let her pass, I felt a sudden and inexplicable courage, and said: "I cannot give you a passing grade in history! It is not possible!"
At first, she seemed confused, but her eyes revealed anger bordering on tears.
"Why!!" she demanded to know.
"Because you wrote a long passage about how Hitler built the Berlin wall," I said and walked away.

I felt rather good after this. I thought I had been brave and made my stand. Stood up for professional standards. Sometimes you have all the information you need. Beyond a certain point, you need no more information because history repeats itself.
However, it is also a part of the story that I had not reported my decision within the deadline stipulated by the school regulation. My decision was therefore overturned on my student's appeal, and she got passing grades after all.

 

[Michaelhe]

En anekdote om bananer
For mange år siden, mens det gamle Domus-bygget eksisterte i Tromsø, begynte de å omorganisere ting i Meny sin store matbutikk, som lå i første etasje. Bygget var håpløst upraktisk og utslitt. En av tingene som ble flyttet var fruktdisken, som ble plassert der hvor produkter for tannhygiene sto før. Et resultat av dette var at det sto et skilt over banankurven hvor det sto: "Inntas oralt".