The Musings of the Mad Swede: Year Three

And so we're here again. May 18. Exactly three years have passed since I wrote my first post here and officially opened Thus Spake the Mighty Wha-keem. It started with a bold mission statement and a weekly publishing schedule, which I'm proud to say I managed to uphold fairly well during the first year. In its second year, a change to a bi-weekly schedule was instituted and has just recently given way to a monthly one (without a specific publication day in the month or the week). For now. And I am still here, so I think that's worth a little anniversary festivity and contemplation.

Last year's anniversary musings were written in advance (thankfully), as I spent the actual day in the delivery room awaiting the arrival of my son, who firmly held out and refused to share his birthday with his father's blog (one has to recognise the integrity in that). The year that has followed has, for many obvious reasons, been an adventure unlike any other, but our focus here will be the 24 posts that have been written and published here since then (perhaps in spite of other adventures).

Reviewing those posts, I note that a few subjects stand out: There have been several posts on various aspects of writing; and also a few on comics (including a look at Jim Starlin's cosmic Marvel work, Swedish comics creator Mike Berg's Agent Marc Saunders and DC's revisiting the Watchmen universe). Reality also intruded harshly with the horrible massacre on the Norwegian island of Utøya, which resulted in a string of posts on topics like the death penalty and the mongrel nature of all culture. On a more positive note, my 100th post was celebrated in October (for the second time, obviously, but accurately this time around) and the 2011 edition of the Göteborg Book Fair was covered (as per tradition). I have also written about the splendour of Australian progressive rock band Aragon, and a host of other subjects, small and large.

All in all, and in spite of a slowed down publishing pace yet again, I don't think my blog accomplishments this past year have been too shabby.

I am still having fun, and I hope you are too, gentle reader.

I'll see you again next month.

"The Report of My Death Was an Exaggeration," or: "The Times They Are a-Changing"

"And so I'm back," as Gloria Gaynor sang.

Regular readers will note that my biweekly publishing schedule has more or less been shot to hell (and back). A number of factors including job, illness and life have caught up with me in the last month or so, and thus not only one but two scheduled posts have had their deadlines flow by without seeing publication.

In fact, the first of the two quotes forming this post's title is partly a reference to the lost post of March 19, which I had fully intended to be a brief eulogy over a giant in the field of comics, Jean Giraud a.k.a. Moebius, who sadly died on March 10. Among his finer achievements are Blueberry with Jean-Michel Charlier (possibly the finest Western comic ever) and The Incal with Alejandro Jodorowsky (an absolutely astounding piece of comics fiction). But I digress. Two deadlines later and over a month since his passing, a eulogy seems somewhat misplaced (albeit not undeserved); and here lies another part of the first title quote, by none other than Samuel Langhorne Clemens (more commonly known as Mark Twain), since the failure to deliver the intended eulogy on time might well have been seen as a sign of a demise – if not my own, then at least the blog itself.

Fret not, however, dear reader. I may be melodramatic by nature at times, but I have not abandoned my post, merely reconsidered it and adapted to current limitations in time and what-not (which has been done once before in this spot). And thus the second title quote by Robert Allen Zimmerman (more commonly known as Bob Dylan) comes into play.

So, what are the changes then? Well, Thus Spake the Mighty Wha-keem will go from being a biweekly publication to a monthly publication (with the addendum that I may well decide to throw in extra posts in-between should time permit it and material suggest itself). Hopefully this will allow things to get back on track and keep the blog alive and kicking.

Thanks for your continued readership, gentle reader!

The Musings of the Mad Swede: Year Two

Before you say it: I know, I am off-schedule. I am in fact five days early, as the next post was not really due until next Monday, May 23. But then again, who could miss an anniversary, or the opportunity to celebrate it? Not I, apparently.

It is now two years ago, on the date, since I first sat down and wrote my mission statement of sorts. And I still stick by it. Sure, there is since October 31 last year an obvious change of publishing pace, but the central parameters of the mission statement still holds and that shift itself is more of a logical extension of those parameters than a break from them.

One year ago, also on the date, I sat down and took stock of my first year as a blogger. Having tried my hand at it, I mused on whatever success (however such a thing is ever measured) I had had in my endeavours. At the time, I noted that I was still more or less on target with the 51st post in 53 weeks (yes, I admitted to having been off target by two posts) and now, 52 weeks later, I have added 38 posts, counting this one (i.e. the 89th). And still, it is not just a number's game.

Looking back over the past year, I have dealt with a host of different subjects: like why censorship does not work, but also the darker sides to freedom of speech and why even these cannot unproblematically justify legal censorship. I have discussed Dutch literature and Swedish comics. I have confessed myself as a literary Satanist and shown my new-found appreciation of Master Word Smith Taylor Mali. I have mused on why feature films are not the filmic equivalents of novels and why it is important to let artists be artists of whatever medium might be theirs. I have celebrated the genius of Jim Henson's Muppet Show, the (lyrical) brilliance of Marillion's Fugazi and the fantastic nature (in both senses of that phrase) of Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children. I have reported from last year's Göteborg Book Fair (in two parts at that). And I spent a month looking into various aspects of writer Adnan Mahmutović (scriptwriter, author and scholar).

Heck, I have even written a faux Post #100, the content of which is not too shabby (if I may say so myself), even though its basic numerical premise mayhap reveals its author's lack of mathematical inclinations.*

All in all, I would say it is not too shabby an accomplishment.

As a final aside (which I cannot refrain from including), this year's anniversary is in some sense doubly significant for me. Two year's ago words came from my head through my fingers into this virtual space... and onwards into the real world via your noggins. Much like Pallas Athena sprang fully formed from Zeus' head in the days of antiquity; if one is partial to such mythical excesses of origin. This year, however, as this gets posted (thanks to pre-scheduled computer wizardry), chances are quite great that your humble scribe is elsewhere, either celebrating or yet nervously anticipating the arrival of another wonderful creation of his. If the date itself proves to be auspicious (in a manner of speaking), I surely will not mind the synchronicity. But I am glad that this humble page will then at least have two years seniority over its sibling of a kind. Because let us face it: much as I love this space of words and phrases and sentences and thought, I fear that it will always play second fiddle from now on.

At any rate, next post will be on Monday May 30 (so as not to generate too vast a gap because of this five days early post), returning us to the current regular interval (i.e. every other week, Mondays at noon). See you then!


* In all honesty, I was quite baffled when I discovered the incongruity whilst preparing this post. The fact that this, as noted above, is post #89 did not quite match the preceding (and incorrect) claim that what is consequently post #85 could ever have been #100. On the bright side, this will allow us to celebrate the 100th post yet another time no more than eleven posts from now. Let us see if I cannot come up with a matching numerical theme for it, eh?

A Change of Publishing Pace

So, here comes a belated final October post, the topic of which ties in with its belatedness.

When I started Thus Spake the Mighty Wha-keem back in May 2009, I argued that "any type of good publication (electronic or otherwise) needs to be maintained continuously" and I still stand by that motto. Obviously, I have faltered on occasion (as this week would indicate at least slightly), but if anything, I am rather proud to say that this blog has become more regular over time, finding its publishing day and time (Mondays at noon CET), once a week, and pretty much sticking to that.

In that sense, the past week has obviously been something of an anomaly to the by now established norm, but it has also forced me to look ahead a bit and see if I could keep up with said publishing deadline or if the stumbling itself would be bound to become a new (and dare I say it, unwanted) norm. The truth is that I am heading into a period in which keeping the deadline and maintaining the level of content quality simply will not be feasible.

Because of this, I have decided to turn Thus Spake the Mighty Wha-keem into a bi-weekly blog, instead of a weekly one, until further notice. In doing so, I hope to re-affirm my own commitment to have a regular publishing continuity without losing quality or my own sanity in the process.

In short, my next post will be up on Monday November 8 at noon (sticking with the established publishing day and time at least) and will then be followed by another one on November 22. Hopefully, you will all still be around for it.

Longevity and bloom to you all!

The Musings of the Mad Swede: Year One

It is today exactly one year ago since I started Thus Spake the Mighty Wha-keem by posting "So... I'll try my hand at this then, shall I?"

That very first post was written as and still (I'm happy to say) reads like my mission statement; what I wanted to do with this blog and how I wanted to do it. It's all there in that first post. Granted that the timing of some of my posts has not corresponded with an exact weekly interval and that February this year was, indeed, a bit of a slip up, but as I write this in my 53rd week as a blogger (or Week One of Year Two, if you will), I also note that this will be my 51th post, which of course means I have kept fairly true to form. However, that is certainly not to say I cannot improve on that count.

As for content, I have to say I am quite happy with what I have covered thus far. I chose the subtitle Musings on Life, Literature, Film, Music and Comics by the Mad Swede, and I have mused on all these things in the past year; granted that I have not necessarily done so in equal measures. But then again, I never said that I would.

Furthermore, I also said in that first post that I did not (nor do I now) want to "spam you" and I do believe I have stayed true to that intention and kept that "promise".

All those 50 posts ago, I addressed you, "gentle (and, at the moment of typing this, somewhat imaginary) reader." Since then, that "somewhat imaginary" state has proven less than imaginary. Thus Spake the Mighty Wha-keem might not be the most well-read blog out there, but it does have readers. You may not always comment or go into lengthy debates about the issues at hand, but (at least some of you) seem to think that it's worthwhile to come back for more. I have even noted (and not without some pleasure and pride, I should add) that the blog Graphic Novels Challenge in their stated motto, "Comics: not a genre," has included a link to one of my own posts on comics. So, obviously there are readers out there who find my musings somewhat relevant, in some sense at least.

I ended that first post by saying, "And above all, I hope it'll be fun. Both for you to read and me to write." For my own part, I can only say that I have indeed enjoyed writing my musings here thus far. Whether or not you, gentle readers, have enjoyed reading them is not really my place to say anything about; I cannot speak for you on such matters (although, the fact that at least some of you return would seem to suggest that you have and do). It is indeed something that I have to leave for you to say.

And so Year One has ended, and a new textual year has begun. So... What's next?

"Write What Thou Wilt Shalt Be the Whole of the Law": The Public, the Private and the Personal

I just read my friend Gealach's latest blog post, "Läsa andras bloggar?" (Eng. trans. Reading other people's blogs) earlier today. In the post, she writes:

I bought Amelia [Swedish woman's magazine] yesterday to read on the train. On their letter page, there is always a cited post from Amelia's forum, with a number of comments written in response to it included. This time it was about a mother who had found her seventeen-year-old daughter's blog, where one can read about everything from sex to cutting classes and partying. The mother, needless to say, didn't like what she read in the blog, but asked if she really had any right to read it, or if she should respect her daughter's privacy. She compared reading the blog with reading a diary. [Translation mine]

This made me think of a subject which I have intended to write about for some time now: that is, the notion of the Public, the Private and the Personal.

The question posed by the mother is anathema to me; simply because it is so ludicrous. Why should she "respect" her daughter's privacy, when her daughter does not do so herself? There is something very strange in comparing a publicly published piece of writing (and yes, e-publishing is a form of publishing, and in many cases with a wider distribution) to a diary. Yet, at the same time, I can understand the mother's feelings vis-a-vis the blog. Because we live in an age where the line between the Public and the Private has been heavily eroded, and there is a generation (possibly more than one) that seem clueless about there being any kind of differentiation.

This phenomenon can be seen in various places in today's society. Just consider what people around you feel happy talking about on their cell phones in various public places (trains, trams, busses, stores); in some cases, this even pertains to material which they make a point of telling the party on the other end of the line is a secret (well, the party on the other end of the line and all the people around them, I should say). Still, it is nowhere more obvious than in the virtual realm of the internet; whether it be in the shape and form of blogs, forums, Twitter or (at least to some degrees) FB.

I would argue that not only is there a substantial difference between the Public and the Private, but that there is an even greater importance to recognise and ken that difference. To borrow from the Bard, "The fault [...] is not in our stars, / But in ourselves" and it is up to us to take responsibility for that.

On one level, I think the problem stems from a misunderstanding of another difference; that is, the one between the Private and the Personal. It is fully possible to write in a personal tone, and even draw upon one's personal experiences, without delving into the realm of the Private. In fact, I would argue that most really enjoyable writing is personal – both in the sense that the stylistic choices grant the writer a recognisable voice of his/her own and that the writer's personal experiences may be used to better illuminate or exemplify the topic at hand, whatever it might be. This tone of voice, this style is, at the end of the day, an element of form, whereas the Private is bare naked content (perhaps with a certain emphasis on the "bare naked" part).

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that the Private cannot be alluring or of interest – clearly, in our age of paparazzi, tabloids and oh-too-private/open diary accounts on-line, such a statement would be sheer folly. Heck, I would not even say that it needs to be an altogether bad thing. But I do stand by my main argument; that is, that those who do present their private lives on the altar of the Public be aware of what it is they do, when they do it.

Whatever you opt to enter into the Public realm is Public, and as such, it is no longer entirely in your own control. Somewhere along the line, your control over who can read it, take part of the information and even share it with others still, diminishes. I find little if any sympathy for people who complain about missing a job opportunity because a prospective employer read a blog post (or similar) where they wrote about doing any of a number of things, rating from the merely dumb through the reprehensible to the downright illegal. It is not that I think that our employers or prospective employers should keep a close watch on our private lives, not at all. But who we are will always be of issue when we apply for a job, and if we enter our private lives into the Public domain... well, they may still be our lives, but I am not entirely sure they are still private.

Thus, to paraphrase Aleister Crowley slighty, perhaps we live in an age where "write what thou wilt shalt be the whole of the Law," but if so, let us also remember that we are likely to be judged by what we write.

So... I'll try my hand at this then, shall I?

As I am someone who enjoys texts and narratives immensely (whether I'm reading, writing or analysing them), it might seem somewhat strange that it's taken me this long to get to blogging. But the truth is that I've simply been reluctant to take this extra bit of textual production upon myself previously. I am of the opinion that a good blog, like any type of good publication (electronic or otherwise) needs to be maintained continuously. I mean, who would want follow a magazine or journal only coming out on rare, occasional intervals?

So, now that I've made the leap, it is my intention to start out slowly, but nevertheless steadily, with at least one post a week (which certainly doesn't preclude the possibility of more posts, if I happen to get into a flow). This is simply because I think that the notion of regular publication is of importance. But also because I don't want to "spam you", gentle (and, at the moment of typing this, somewhat imaginary) reader. I'll willingly shed intellectual pretension and the like, but I've no wish to waste your time, or mine.

So, I'll try to muse on things that may be of interest, or at least somewhat entertaining; to ramble on, but not without some sort of direction; to share with you some of my thoughts, ideas and opinions on life, literature, film, music and comics (though by no means necessarily in that order).

And above all, I hope it'll be fun. Both for you to read and me to write.