Zarathustra has once again spoken

Zarathustra lived on his own for ten years in the mountains where he listened to the trees and learnt the ways of the nature. When leaving to get back to the civilization again, he meets saints on the way and they recall who Zarathustra once was, and who he has changed to become during the years in exile. During this time Zarathustra came to believe in his own ‘God’, which he called Superman – as he did believe that God, as we know him from Christianity, is dead. But Superman is the purpose of the world, the meaning of life and the reason why we are all alive.

‘I am a prophet of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called Superman’ (p45)

We follow Zarathustra’s journey as he travels from village to village to spread his ideas and theories about everything you can ever imagine – and a few of them does not make sense at all to me as they are very much expressed in a philosophical way, which to me equals confused and complicated. He expresses a lot of thoughts on how the body and the soul are not necessarily connected, instead the soul is just a separate part inside your body but the two of them do not cooperate in the way we might think they do. Further on, Zarathustra speaks of the Ego – the great contempt of man – and how it rules our Self through our different senses, through passion and joy, through love and hate and so on.

‘There is always a certain madness in love. But also there is always a certain method in madness’ (p68)

Zarathustra speaks of the state as the coldest of all cold monsters, and how it seems to turn everything into sickness and tragedy that it touches. He speaks about your neighbours as poisonous flies. He speaks of the filthiness that exists at the bottom of a man’s soul – because the only thing they seem to find satisfying here on earth is sex with a woman. He believes that a slave, a tyrant and neither a woman can be a man’s friend for the reasons that a slave cannot be a friend, a tyrant cannot have a friend and a woman can do nothing else than love, not be a friend.

‘If I wanted to shake this tree with my hands I should be unable to do it. But the wind, which we cannot see, torments it and bends it where it wishes. It is invisible hands that torment and bend us the worst’ (p69)

God is dead - Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Nietzsche abandoned religious believes at an early age, and replaced it with ‘freelancing philosophy’. His ideas were, as many philosophers, very complicated and revolved around common philosophical topics, such as whether the truth is actually discoverable, the different types of errors mankind goes through throughout their life and how they manage, or more likely not manage, to correct these errors. Nietzsche is a nihilist, just like Kierkegaard, which means that he believes that “life is without objective meaning, purpose or intrinsic value”. He was very fond of sexual relationships and over the years he seemed to have one too many humiliating affairs. Nietzsche explains fear as the feeling of abscence of power.

What is truth?

Meaning of life?

In a man who thinks like this, the dichotomy between thinking and feeling, intellect and passion, has really disappeared. He feels his thoughts. He can fall in love with an idea. An idea can make him ill.

Goethe once wrote an essay on Winckelmann, and this came to be kind of the motto of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. "Zarathustra is the founder of of the ancient Persian religion" (p30) and his religion is basically built on conflicts between the Gods of good and light, and the Gods of darkness and evil. Even though the book is kind of loose with no real storyline as we are used to in novels written today, there is still something similar to a plot. Through the four different parts of this book his message about how man is something that must be overcome.

This is just a short summary of what the book is about, what I have managed to find out about it from reading the introduction, different reviews and blogs on the internet and also by talking and philosophising with friends about his ideas and work. I can't say I am more enlightened in the different topics being discussed in the book, but I do now have a better understanding of the various aspects of philosopy from a nihilists point of view - just like I got a wider understanding on architecture from reading From Bauhaus to Our House (see previous blog post) than I would have had about architecture if not reading it. The more time I spend reading works written by well known philosophers, the more knowledge I gain - but at the same time, I also seem to confuse myself even more, as new theories and ideas appear in my head.

Burns Night - or a drunken toast

After such a lovely toast, it's only right to say
Thank you lads, it makes us glad, you think of us this way

As we, know the times have changed, there can't be any doubt
Girls are from Venus, boys from Mars, and now the truth will out

Games and boxers scattered around, and mates who stay too late
Empty beer cans stacked up high, we've learnt to tolerate

When you leave the toilet seat up, it grates, we can't deny
And when you say you cannot cook, we wish you'd at least bloody try

And when we want our comfort snack, it's nowhere to be seen
Cause someone made a chocolate raid, which tends to make us 'mean'

But worst of all you cannot seem, to get into your head
My birthday is important too, forget again, you're dead

But when it all is said and done, we couldn't live without
Our laddies, who adore us so, we know this, there's no doubt

So raise your glasses nice and high, and toast the ones we hold dear
Annoying bastards one and all, but deserving of a cheer

---

Last night I had the opportunity to for the first time in my life participate as my local pub celebrated the Scottish poet Robert Burns. When I and R decided to join in with the locals in the festivities, I did not expect the landlord to ask me to toast the laddies in a speech that follows the lads speech to the lassies, the ladies. Since I did not know anything about this event I had to do quite a lot of research to grasp what this event would be like, and therefore know how to set my speech up. A bit cheeky and naughty as I am, I wanted to put a modern twist to great poetry and the above toast is the outcome. Written by me - and I never thought I would have anything to give in poetry, but at least it looks like I can rhyme.

I had a brilliant night, and it was a great experience. Toasts and speech will most likely follow me through life, as I enjoy being in the middle of everything that happens in my surroundings - hence why my aim is to be a journalist. So with great opportunities to be in the limelight for a minute or two like this, I can teach from mistakes and scribble down something even better next time.

To the laddies!

Walkers Meaty Crisps - Suitable for Vegetarians

1984 George Orwell writes about manipulating people’s minds by using new words – Newspeak. Through this new language people come to believe whatever the Government told them to believe – yes, kind of brain washing. For example, they tell people that war has always been going between two countries, when in fact both of them were in alliance last week and in war with a third country…

My example is by far not this serious, hopefully we can trust our Government today – to some extent – and if they tell us that we are in war or in an alliance with another country, we would expect this to be true. My example is taken from the supermarkets. Today there seems to be an ongoing trend, if you can call it that, where more and more people turn away from meat to try living their lives as vegetarians. It is quite a healthy option, but I still don’t think I could manage a life without meat. People that I know of who are vegetarians do tend to agree that you forget about meat after a while, and quite happily reject eating it, not only due to animal rights reasons, but also because of the fact that they say they do not like the tastes after a while. It sounds similar to when you try to stop smoking, once you’ve managed to get rid of that last cigarette, you don’t want to feel, smell or taste it anymore. So therefore I was quite surprised seeing Walkers Meaty Crisps, Roast Chicken, Smoky Bacon and Steak & Onion, all being suitable for vegetarians. If what they say is correct, why would they want to choose crisps that taste like the one thing they have given up?

It is interesting how Walkers can print with massive letters all over the bag ‘MEATY’ and on the back of it refer to the crisps as ‘And there were potatoes of the ‘rarest’ quality that were selected for our mouth-wateringly meaty Steak & Onion flavour crisps’ – I know, it says flavour, but when I read that sentence I don’t see seasonings and herbs, I see meat juices. And wouldn’t that be healthier than trying to reproduce flavours from a powder that has no connection what so ever with the product it is supposed to taste like?

I know that this might not be classified as pure manipulation; it is written on the bag that it is flavoured crisps – but why have a big juicy headline saying ‘MEATY’ all over the bag? If I were a vegetarian, would I think ‘hmm these might be vegetarian steak crisps, let’s check out the fine print’? Most likely not. If I were a vegetarian and saw capital letters meat all over a product I would not give it a second look.

So question is, what does Walker want to achieve with such a product?

What does it mean?

Can anyone explain to me what this means? Thanks!

From Bauhaus to Our House - Part Two

The twentieth century, which came to be called the American century, was the period of time when America became the richest and wealthiest nation in the world. The architecture reigning at this time, worker housing, was not as the concept may intend made for workers – on the contrary – this was a style that served the purpose in the richer families because this type of furniture etcetera was seen as a symbol of wealth and privilege. This International Style was also extremely uncomfortable, and became known simply as modern architecture’ (p68). With time this style developed into what we today call minimalism, and Philip Johnson was the biggest inspiration to this movement with his guide lines ‘less is more’ and ‘my architecture is almost nothing’ – minimalism (p75).

Another early architect in America who executed this type of architecture was Edward Durell Stone. He later developed his style to a more luxurious kind of design. Morris Lapidus and John Portman worked hard to capture this American wealthy era that followed the Second World War, and their work became very big and important for the nation.

In 1966 a new way was approached within architecture by Robert Venturi. Instead of the earlier famous expression ‘less is more’, Venturi said ‘less is bore’ and he wanted to replace the minimalistic traces and replaced these ideas with ‘messiness’ and ‘hybrid’ elements, he preferred ‘complexity and contradiction in architecture’ (p107). He also praised the pop artists of his time, as he saw them bringing back some kind of a connection between art and popular culture.

After the massive recession in the 1970s, the business structure of America got broken down, and the building boom that swept over the country during the 1960s met a hard time as architects and similar employees lost their jobs and projects.

Following this period the Rationalists were born, led by Aldo Rossi, Ricardo Bofill, Leon and Robert Krier. They believed that the true and pure way of modernism was to go back to first principles (p127). Towards the end of the 1970s a new type of architecture was developed, where the two different types of modern architecture were combined to a single entity.

Like I mentioned in my previous post about the same book, I found it complicated, but also stuffed with lots of information that is very meaty to take in when you, like me, have no previous knowledge about the subject. Reading this book gave me a bit more insight in architecture and how it has come to form, especially, America. My interest in architecture has not really grown, but I would like to think that it is always a good thing to know a little about a lot when you are a journalist so that you have got an overall picture of what is going on around you. Hopefully this topic will get clearer to me once we are having lectures and seminars concerning architecture, Tom Wolfe and his literature.

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Starting from Zero! as Gropius would have said

Tom Wolfe is probably one of the biggest journalists from our time, who is most famous for his very controversial bestselling books Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, The Painted Word and the book I have been asked to read for my journalism course; From Bauhaus to Our House which discusses the world of American architecture, especially after the First World War. It addresses the way architects, such as Walter Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus school in Germany, Weimar), influenced Modern Architecture; this from the new concept - 'Art and Technology - a new unity' - that he 'dreamed up'. Bauhaus was more than just a school, it was a commune, a spiritual movement, a radical approach to art and a philosophical centre. The young American architects roamed through Europe on a pilgrimage during the years after the First World War, and they changed the way architecture had been approached to, and put a modern twist to it that still exist in European cities nowadays.



Within the Bauhaus community different experiments took place, as long as they were pure and clean, so for example, for a period of time no other food than pure vegetarian meals, were served. Also, when working with materials and such it was supposed to be as natural and pure as possible. The brotherhood of man (because they were true socialists) also agreed to pure, straight angles in architecture, flat roofs and no nobility crowns on top of the houses, this was a symbol of the nonbourgeois architecture. But, this was not, as we all can imagine, not a very functional solution since it is raining and snowing quite a bit in Europe.

After this 'The International Style' followed, which was one of the most influential documents written in the history of colonial complex (p.37). It was written by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson and they aimed to introduce, with help of this document and photographs that followed with it, the work of Gropius (The Silver Prince) in New York. The American pride of the 20th century within architecture was the skyscraper, and Wolfe talks about them very unimpressed as 'empty, zigzag trimmings' - even though they are actually quite functional... In Europe artists and architects began moving towards a new era, the avant-garde. With this the European modernism followed in arts, and the Museum of Modern Art opened as this concept was established.

As the Nazi's rose in Germany, just before the Second World War, Gropius fled from Germany, via Britain, to the United States and made the head of the school of architecture at Harvard. A New Bauhaus was opened, and over time the ways of teaching architecture changed to become more similar to the ways it was taught in Europe. In the 1940's the first American Art compound was established, and Arnold Schönberg - the white god of European music - arrived as a refugee. With these important persons influencing the teaching processes, Harvard transformed and everyone, and everything started from zero.

Finally, with these movements, a new architecture started to become recognised in America - which came straight in from Germany, Holland and France. With the depression going on, the architecture business wasn't doing too well and new buildings were basically not set up, which made the European model (to start from zero) easier to adapt to. In the late 40's, early 50's a new fashion arrived in America, as the inventor Buckminster Fuller created 'large structures with light surfaces out of machine-made materials' (p.56). Yale became the future vision of the rich people's kids. Straight lines, beige colours and blank walls were found within architecture, because of Kahn.

This book, From Bauhaus to Our House, consists of a lot of weird concepts and words that I do not know of, which made the reading experience very tough to deal with - but on the other hand I have learnt so many new things that I would most likely not have if not reading this book. Art and technology as concepts have never really been very fascinating, as I am more interested in sports and music, action based concepts where I can express my emotions more directly. I guess the beauty of art and technology is the absolute opposite, very timid and subtle, but the passion for it expressed in the same way from the people who feel emotionally connected with these concepts.

Journalism 2010 - or Multimediaism in the Twens

We are now moving into a new decade, the 2o1o's (which by the way I don't know what to call ... the twens?) and this puts me and my class mates back to action at the University again where we will continue our second year towards the journalism degree we are longing for.

Why I do enjoy this course so much is due to the fact that we are not only focusing on writing articles regulated by a fatal error system, just like it works in the real world - we do also focus on the different types of journalism that exist in our multimedia society today. Like I've mentioned earlier (see previous blogs) we run Winol (Winchester News Online) every week, which is 100% student run, and with this we get excellent training in the everyday work that a journalist does once out on the field. This covers everything from finding stories and contacts, get to the place where the action is, interview and record it on your own with the equipment we have been trained to use before finally putting it all together to a news package that will be seen every Wednesday at 5pm on our website.

Thanks to all this training and a lot of opportunities that have come up during the time we have been working with this I have managed to get lots of new contacts and a very useful insight in how it actually works out being a journalist in the UK - which is extremely stressful and hard work, but a great lot of fun!! I am very happy with my choices for this course, and journalism definitely is my cup of tea.

I think 2o1o is gonna be the best decade so far for journalism. Basically due to all the different ways in which multimedia moves, and thanks to all the new chances and opportunities that open up for us, the younger journalism generation, over the Internet, through blogs and other public bodies online, which enables us to stretch out and reach more people now already, even before we are graduated. I think this decade is gonna rock multimedia journalism!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

It is actually snowing in Britain. A lot. And I love it!

It is quite interesting though what a difference a little bit of snow and a few minus degrees make. Since I’m from Sweden I’m very used to over snowed ways, icy slippery roads, snowballs flying around my head and so on, but here it is so completely different. You walk down the road to find everyone walking around with snowballs in their hands, ‘cause it’s cool! You see the ‘cool’ people standing in their usual ‘cool’ place with snowballs in their hands, ‘cause it’s cool! Drunk late 20ish something males running around the beer gardens of pubs here and there with snowballs in their hands, ‘cause it’s cool!

You turn on the radio in the morning and the first thing they tell you is not to die from snow. Telly let us know that no traffic should be out on the roads ‘cause of snow. Not on the railways or in the air either by the way. School kids running around outside, playing in the snow ‘cause school and college is not on today. Not tomorrow either. ‘Cause of snow. Even people who works stays at home, due to the risk of breaking your neck if walking outside, ‘cause of snow.

Then I talk to my mum who kindly tells me it’s -28 degrees back home, and that they’re expecting a record cold weekend with around -40 degrees a couple of hours north of her place. She sends me a few picture of the metre high walls of snow that covers the roads where cars drive around like they have always done, and the pavements where kids are skipping along for school that is on as usual while their parents stress around to get to work in time, ‘cause it is just another bloody day – like any other.

It is interesting, but very, very different to what I am used to. But that’s life, an experience in itself!