Sunday, August 29, 2021

From a strange planet - 37

I've been taking walks around the camera locations. I've seen many nice places and I hope you like them too.
This time the motto comes from a long lost website that contained many autobiographical gems written by an anonymous author. I found it fascinating and I miss it:
When I was 15 there was a cone of light emitting from a mountain near our house. I playfully called the light “Giant” with a hard G. I used to talk to it, much as one would talk to a dog.

Fv. 30 Mosenget - Google streetview

I'm a huge fan of these lonely Norwegian houses. They come with stories.
I don't know what stories. I'm not good enough to write them.
The anonymous internet author is much better than I:
I can’t recall how this came about, but I discovered that Giant granted prayers of a particular sort. I could ask for anyone I wanted to show up the next weekend at the Hollyburn Skating club. It always worked. I decided to give it a tougher test and ask Ann M. to show up. She did not belong to the club. Lo and behold she showed up, a guest of someone else.
Giant did not talk, but his presence was warm and comforting.
The cone may have had some quite ordinary explanation, but just too faint for my friends to see. It might have been an artifact of my glasses. The appearances might have been probable anyway. However, it remains a slight anomaly I don’t feel fully comfortable dismissing.
A beautiful river.
With an inviting bridge. A place to meditate.
With an Andy Goldsworthy artwork in the water.
And another inviting bridge.
This is the hill with the roadworks.
And fields in the neighbourhood.
What a great place for autumn walks.
It reminds me of this LP cover.
I liked the landscape even more than the music.

Sunday, August 8, 2021

From a strange planet - 36

I've been taking walks around the camera locations. I've seen many nice places and I hope you like them too. This time I omit long descriptions. But I add the words of  Fernando Pessoa, from The Book of Disquiet, nr. 299. Enjoy!

Rv. 3 Bergrønningen - Google Streetview

Every time I go somewhere, it’s a vast journey. A train trip to Cascais tires me out as if in this short time I’d travelled through the urban and rural landscapes of four or five countries. I imagine myself living in each house I pass, each chalet, each isolated cottage whitewashed with lime and silence – happy at first, then bored, then fed up.
The same place with dramatic clouds. 
And seen from a long distance from a higher road.
Here are some scenes from the surroundings.

E6 Rosten - Google Streetview

 It all happens in a moment, and as soon as I’ve abandoned one of these homes, I’m filled with nostalgia for the time I lived there. And so every trip I make is a painful and happy harvest of great joys, great boredoms, and countless false nostalgias. And as I pass by those houses, villas and chalets, I also live the daily lives of all their inhabitants, living them all at the same time.
The camera view looks bland.
But the camera is placed in a very photogenic place with a disused bridge.
Here are some scenes from the surroundings.
The local wooden church.
A Goldsworthy-like stone in two seasons.

Rv. 15 Lom - Google Streetview

 I’m the father, mother, sons, cousins, the maid and the maid’s cousin, all together and all at once, thanks to my special talent for simultaneously feeling various and sundry sensations, for simultaneously living the lives of various people – both on the outside, seeing them, and on the inside, feeling them.
The camera view shows a nice sloping field with a tree.
But the rest of the picture is less interesting.
But the surrounding landscape is worth a visit.
Whether mountains in morning snow ...
... or birch trees in autumn colours ...

... or strange climbing devices.
When the sun rises, it cuts through the mountain.

Fv. 51 Valdresflye - Google Streetview

 I’ve created various personalities within. I constantly create personalities. Each of my dreams, as soon as I start dreaming it, is immediately incarnated in another person, who is then the one dreaming it, and not I. To create, I’ve destroyed myself. I’ve so externalized myself on the inside that I don’t exist there except externally. I’m the empty stage where various actors act out various plays.
In early summer there is still some snow here.
Later it melts, leaving a Martian landscape.
This is far from everywhere. In winter all is white. 
But people live here and you can park, eat and sleep here.
You can even take a boat to other mountains.