Wednesday, August 26, 2009

/// utopics

Utopics are a type of spatial play whereby a utopian outlook on society and the moral order that it wishes to project are translated into spatial practice through the attachment of ideas about the good society onto representations of particular places. Martin's best illustrations of this utopics can be found in his reading of Disneyland (1984) and America (1992). 

The history of youth culture, whether that be spectacular sub-cultures or more ordinary and conformist practices, has always had an element of making space for oneself, of creating a turf and finding one's place, often on the margins of society (Trasher, 1927; Becker, 1946). Finding one's place has sometimes meant going elsewhere into a supposedly free space, a space percieved as more authentic (E. Cohen 1973, 1979) or more one's own, where issues of inclusion and exclusion can be determined by establishing categories of belonging and group identification. At other times, it has meant staying put and trying to change one's situation there. In either case, certain places come to be seen differently from the representation they have within society, they come to be invested with meaning that express values or beliefs just as important to those youth cultures as their identification with certain types of music or styles of dress.

- Hetherington, Kevin. Vanloads of Uproarious Humanity: New Age Travellers and the utopics of the countryside. in Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Subcultures, Ed. Tracey Skelton, Gill Valentine. 328-329. 1998. Routledge: London. 

-Stockholms Stadsbibliotek

/// unforgettable season



This is what I thought you said/ 
talking on the phone/ just walk away and cry/ cause so long./ 
The holidays we spent will fade/ now that I've (you've) been gone/ 
just remember that we met/ you're still at home./ 
LISTEN TO THE VOICE THAT SAYS ALRIGHT/ THIS IS THE START NOT THE END TONIGHT.

/// fryslȃn




















"i want to remember this forever."
"you will never forget."

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

/// sweden by musse


Where other place to feel melancholy and to bask in sadness but Sweden? Sweden loves you. It will not go away, it will stay where it is. Sweden will not feel the need to get up and go to India to find itself. Sweden does not have any ex-girlfriends. Sweden will not leave you.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

/// belgie



belgium. the buffer state. jealousy and jurassic park. never ending magritte skies. magritte said "i love subversive humor, freckles, knees, the long hair of women, the dreams of young children at liberty, a young gir running in the street. i wish for real love, the impossible, the utopian." dinosaur bones, the t-rex, triceratops and eight standing iguanodons. and iguanodons lying on the ground. 65,000,000 years ago, can you imagine how long ago that was? i couldn't. de ruijter breakfasts, thai lunches, fries on paper cones. small coca cola bottles. a gay restaurant with belgian flags: hello teenagers! there is no toilet, only a garden. attention! on va morir! bon-a! bon-a! pettit! young love - real, passionate and fierce. the pains of being pure at heart, over and over again. i could feel it. the train to brugge. the train to brussels.  plus est en vous. ninjtje and pusstje. finding love in food. wala kang dapat ikatakot. kaya ka nagkakaganyan kasi hindi mo matanggap: may plano ka na, pero nag-iba. e knoop doorhakken. 

and a long straight line in my head that says: you you you. it never stops, not for one second. you, in ice cream cups, splattered all across magritte skies, tucked in between conversations, always lingering just behind the person i am talking to. you, behind the lonely curtain as i fall asleep. "nothing worthwhile happened today."

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

/// brugge










 i went to brugge yesterday. 
on the entrance of some medieval wall it said: 
plus est en vous
there is more in you.

Monday, August 17, 2009

/// still here.
















fryslan in my head. i am in leuven and brussels, but i am also not here. i am in the north sea, standing next to you. 

days and minutes are not the same for me anymore. time passes quickly and fluidly when i am with you. like a dream, with the rhythm of flowing bicycles. but without you, just a single day feels as heavy and as long as a year. and recent memories feel like memories of ten years ago already. i am in leuven and brussels... and its just a matter of becoming stronger inside and jumping from second to second, and memory to memory until i meet you again.

we are still here. 


Saturday, August 15, 2009

/// 24/5




how can i miss you this much?