Today is Friday and it’s about 20 Deg.C, partly overcast and a bit windy. In fact it’s very nice for strolling here in downtown Copenhagen.

For some reason the flea market on the Israel Plaza is closed today, hence I moved on to the bookcases outside the Paludans antiquarian booksellers in Fiolstraede, a five min. walk.

I found two books at 10 Kr ($1,50) each – more later.

From Paludans it’s another short walk to the Photografica camera store.

In their odds-and-ends box I saw an old SLR from abt. 1975 swimming around. It’s the Mamiya DSX1000 35mm SLR with a 42mm lens mount thread.

It came with a – not original – Soligor 35mm f.2,8 lens in the so-called T.4 mount now rarely seen even in the fleamarkets.

Everything seem to work ok – only I’ve not brought a suitable cell battery for the light meter and thus can’t know if the meter works correctly, or at all.

But the price asked was only 75 Kr ($11,50) whence I decided I could accept the risk. It’s not too often you find a Mamiya 35mm SLR in usable condition, by the way (no pun intended!).

In the McDonalds where I’m writing this someone left an issue of todays EKSTRABLADET, the largest tabloid in our small capital. Why not take a quick look at some of the headlines?

On page 2 there’s a small piece about something I really have a certain difficulty writing about at all, on account it’s an outrage. You feel really offended and pissed off on several levels, a feeling I believe is quite widespread.

It’s about NETS. NETS is the company managing the card-payments for Danish shops plus the log-in facility for Government websites.

And whose board has managed to draw up plans for appropriating a few hundred million dollars for themselves as a bonus – reportedly.

I believe NETS was originally a public service company, just like f.i. the Post Office? But according to the general agenda drawn up by the Global NWO DeepState power brokers (Bilderberg et all?) all such Government owned companies are to be privatized (as we say in Denmark, I believe the english-speaking world says ‘taken public’?). The billionaire investors can’t get enough…

Usually there are two steps – One: The company is sold off, but most often still part-owned by Government.

Two: Eventually the company is offered for the general investor on the stock exchange.

For the managements this modus operandi happens to give wonderful opportunies for selfish and reckless enrichment – quite legally, of course. And is a well known spectacle all over the world, I believe.

Think of the wast assets appropiated from public Russian wealth beginning at the collaps of the Soviet Union abt. 1990.

Wast fortunes were purloined by businessmen (or gangsters?) with almost unlimited energy and schutzpah in this line of work.

Or think of our Danish Post Office sold off abt. a decade ago. The Danish part of the resulting, consolidated Danish-Swedish Postal company has been totally asset-stripped, almost down to the last nail ‘in the coffin’.

Figuratively speaking, the president of NETS seem to most likely have extended family in WallStreet? And very fittingly, inded. A total lack of scruples makes everything happen much faster and more effectively in the short run in this sort of business?

This world wide DeepState directed asset-stripping of citizen owned public assets is perhaps basically to be regarded as a racket?

But the culpable racketeers are certainly not the company boards, they are probably as a rule following the law to the letter – but the politicians making this asset-stripping possible through negligent laws or supervision or perhaps underhanded ways?

The Globalist DeepState always rewards any and all willing nation-disrupting puppet handsomely – the rewards are called ‘fat-cat-jobs’ – and of which Denmark may likely have seen several emblematic samples in recent decades?

On pages 4-5 there’s a report about the American ambassador in Copenhagen throwing a garden party for 1500 of her ‘closest friends and associates’. 1500! – that’s something, I dare say.

However our photographer and/or reporter may possibly be on their first job? At least the pictures seem to be slightly indifferent?

There’s a large picture from the large garden with mostly unspecified samples of the guests; there are also two or three pictures of a few – not very exiting and at most unintendedly funny? – Danish politicians.

There’s also a picture of the ambassador addressing the guests. Only her picture is so small you can hardly discern her features. Which is a pity, as she seems to be a real pretty lady?

On page 12 is a report about quality problems in one of the Danish ‘Super markets’ – i.e. large general food stores.

Where I live we have several within a 10 min walk: Aldi, Fakta, Irma, Meny, and Netto.

Some of these stores obviously have occasional management problems; but I believe this cannot be avoided as it’s probably well nigh impossible to hire qualified staff at the compensations offered?

On page 14 the former editor in chief of EKSTRABLADET, Mr. Bent Falbert, gives us his opinion on one of the latest missions or fads of our (now presumeably unseated) government, or rather of most all of parliament.

This clever fad is to demolish low income housing plans with the objective of destroying the ghettos comprised of mostly muslim – 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation – immigrants.

Mr. Falbert is rightly critical of this plan, whence he – hilariously – writes (in Danish):

‘Bygningerne skal rives ned, fordi folk er for ens på et for lavt niveau. Man kunne med samme logiske begrundelse rive Christiansborg ned’ (mener Bent Falbert).

Mr. Falbert is of course a very clever hombre. Incidentally he may possibly also be a nice person, as he gracefully steps aside if you have to pass him in our local Aldi.

Only he apparently thinks the left side of parliament is less clever than the right side. Could be an unintentional blunder, of course?

The two books I fetched at Paludans are:

1. BREAD & CIRCUSES. THEORIES OF MASS CULTURE AS SOCIAL DECAY. By Patrick Brantlinger. 1983, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 307 p., paperback.

From the back cover I quote:

‘Brantlinger maintains that the idea that modern society is repeating an ancient pattern of decline and fall pervades most of the writing on mass culture over the last two centuries.

‘Discussing many of the most influential and representative theories of mass culture, Brantlinger ranges widely from Greek and Roman origins, through Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Ortega y Gasset, T.S.Eliot, and the theorists of the Frankfurt Institute, down to Marshall McLuhan and Daniel Bell.

‘Brantlinger shows how the belief in the historical inevitability of social decay – a belief today perpetuated by the mass media themselves – has become the dominant view of mass culture in our time.’

Doesn’t a ‘BELIEF (that)… has become the dominant view’ smack a good deal of ‘religion’? If so, it’s perhaps not so strange that Satanism reportedly now has become a popular ‘religion’ in the West?

If the Western World don’t overcome the religious lure of decadence, social decay and satanism in quite short order, and shut down their missionaries, the glib snake oil salesmen of cultural disruption so eagerly supported by the Globalist NWO power- and money-brokers, – we shall certainly perish.

2. THE CULTURE OF TIME AND SPACE 1880 – 1918. By Stephen Kern, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 372 p, paperback.

From the back cover:

‘Stephen Kern writes about the sweeping changes in technology and culture between 1880 and World War I that created new modes of understanding and experiencing time and space.

‘This overview covers such figures as Proust, Joyce, Mann, H.G.Wells, Gertrude Stein, Freud, Conrad, Einstein, and Picasso, as well as diverse sources of popular culture and the transformation of traditional values.’

And more:

‘No brief summary can do justice to the riches and range of this exciting book, which brims with ideas and insights, evidence and examples, and provides the most comprehensive account of the life of the mind in these crusial decades before the First World War, when so much of our modern world was formed and fashioned.

‘Kern’s command of art and literature, painting and architecture, philosophy and psychology, physics and technology is awesome: he moves from Proust to Picasso, Einstein to Stravinsky, with consummate ease and unquenchable enthusiasm’. (London Review of Books)

There are 11 chapters: 1.The nature of Time. 2.The Past. 3.The Present. 4.The Future. 5.Speed. 6.The Nature of Space. 7.Form. 8.Distance. 9.Direction. 10.Temporality of the July Crisis. 11.The Cubist War.

Lets just cast a fleeting glance at the second page of ‘The nature of Time’ (p.11 of the book), from which I quote:

‘As every child quickly learns, there is only one time. It flows uniformly and may be divided into equal parts anywhere along the line.

‘This is the time Isaac Newton defined in 1687: “Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equally without relation to anything external.”

‘In THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON (1781) Immanuel Kant rejected the Newtonian theory of absolute, objective time (because it could not possibly be experienced) and maintained that time was a subjective form or foundation of all experience. But even though it was subjective, it was also universal – the same for everybody.

‘No doubt Newton and Kant experienced different paces of private time, but before the late nineteenth century no one (with the possible exception of Laurence Sterne, who explored private time in TRISTRAM SHANDY) systematically questioned the homogeneity of time. The evidence for it was written on the faces of the millions of clocks and watches manufactured every year.’

A few remarks of mine: Time is not an entity of it’s own. It’s not an ‘it’. From where I started writing this post I had a view of the Copenhagen City Plaza. If you feel you should or could name this view an ‘entity’ of it’s own you might of course also be silly enough to name Time an entity?

Like in ‘Space-Time Continuum’ – which I believe is or until recently has been new-speek for the classic ‘Ether’. Sounds good but makes no sense.

I never had the propensity nor the leisure to plod through Kant’s KRITIK DER REINEN VERNUNFT. Hence I cannot know with certainty exactly what was his meaning with the concept of time as ‘a subjective form or foundation of all experience.’

But I certainly agree that the conception of Time is something subjective: In brief it’s your counsciousnes’ sensing or experiencing and recording in some sort of memory change in (yourself or) your environment.

By the way it would be rash to stipulate, that clocks and electrons rotate with exactly the same speed everywhere in the Universe. But ofcourse, if Earth is your Universe, things are simpler.

(21.June./upd.24.June/29.Aug.2019)

Crossposted on www.gamleboeger.dk and http://blocnotesimma.wordpress.com

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Today is Friday and as it’s neither very hot nor chilly a nice day for strolling in downtown Copenhagen.

Hence I’ve visited a couple of my usual hunts. Firstly a look at the bookcases in Fiolstraede, an old-city street once renowned for it’s antikvarian booksellers. At Paludan’s I fetched a handful at 10 Kr ($1,50) each. More about these below.

From Fiolstraede it’s only a short walk to the Israel Plaza with it’s traditional friday-saturday flea market. I’ve occasionally found an interesting old camera here, and for a pitttance. However no such thing today.

But I had the good fortune to greet my old friends G.R. and her boyfriend, today tending a booth with antique nick-nacks. Haven’t seen them for years.

Her NY-photomodel daughter is now, I’m told, an accomplished Danish artist and has recently had an exhibition in the city (Bredgade). Here is what I wrote on my blog by way of thanking her for an invitation to her first exhibition here after having repatriated from NewYork 10 years ago. (Note 1)

From the Israel Plaza it’s a 15min walk East to the friendly folks at todays favourite photographic store, Foto/C.

They offered me an old Canon SLR, the FX in the chrome version, with a 50mm 1,8 lens. The price was 50 Kr ($7.00) and ofcourse camera and lens are both quite defective.

As usual for the Canon SLR’s of the late sixties and early seventies the shutter bearings are now more or less dried out and the shutter not functioning anywhere near acceptable. The lens seems to have separation in the front lens cell, to boot.

From recent experience I know, however, that I may perhaps have a chance to lubricate at least some of the bearings, and possibly sufficient to make the camera again work with acceptable accuracy. Time will show. (Note 2)

Finally a few impressions from the books I fetched in Fiolstraede (as usual sample quotes are in the language of the book in question):

1. ENHET OG MANGFOLD I EUROPEISK KULTUR. Idéhistoriske studier i renessanse-humanismen og dens forutsetninger. By Paulus Svendsen. København 1980, Museum Tusculanums Forlag. 283 pages, paperback.

The author is a professor in literature at the Oslo univsersity.

Chapter 8 ‘Det 12. aarhundres renessanse’ begins thus:

‘1100-tallet er et av de best undersoekte tidsrom med hensyn til gresk-kyndighet; det er i foerste rekke J. de Ghellincks grundige verk som har samlet og utvidet vaar viten. Det er nu blitt noksaa alminnelig aa tale om ‘Det 12. aarhundres renessanse’.

‘J. De Ghellinck fremhever noe av forskjellen mellom det 12. aarhundres renessanse og den italienske Quattrocento slik: Mens den sistnevnte begrenset sine oppdagelsesreiser efter greske kildeskrifter vesentlig til Bysants, fant 1100-tallet sine skatter i Spania, paa Sicilia, i Bysants, i Syria og i Bagdad, hos araberne, kanske mer enn hos grekerne.

‘Dessuten kom, i motsetning til 1400-tallets oversettelsesvirksomhet, Platon og Plotin knapt nok innenfor interessefeltet, naar unntas at to Platon-dialoger, Menon og Faidon, for foerste gang ble oversatt, direkte fra gresk, av grekeren Henricus Aristippus.

‘Paa 1100-tallet representerer grekerne et kompleks av problemer for Vesten. Korsfarerne, som gang paa gang drog gjennom det bysantinske rike, maatte naturlig nok komme til aa utloese hos grekerne en sterk motvilje, og den igjen ble besvart med et virkelig grekerhat.

‘Allerede efter det foerste korstog spredte et slikt grekerhat seg i Vesten. Baade politisk, militaert og religioest ble nu Bysants gjenstand for aksjoner. Korstogene skulle nu bli en kamp ogsaa mot skismatikerne.’

>One can hardly help contrast or rather parallel this conflict to some degree with the now ongoing contest or even showdown between the West (or rather the leaders in Western-Europe and the U.S.) and the East (Ukraine-Russia-Serbia plus perhaps Tyrkia-Syria-Iran?).

It’s perhaps most likely, now as then, a conflict provoked almost solely by reckless and irresponsible Western leaders and their monied backers?

2. IN SEARCH OF DREAMTIME. The Quest For The Origin Of Religion. By Tomoko Masuzawa. 1993, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London. 223 p., paperback.

The author is associate professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

From chapter three ‘Accidental Mythology: Max Müller in and out of his Workshop I quote (p.62, in extracts):

(from a letter to his friend in Germany, Jacob Bernays (not dated here, perhaps about 1860))…

‘What I miss most here in Oxford is stimulating intercourse in literary and scientific circles. That is entirely wanting, especially in my special branch of study….’

‘Oxford has been, and is still, in a state of hibernation; I expect nothing for some years to come. It will wake after a time, but I doubt whether much is gained by disturbing its slumbers for the present.

‘My only comfort at Oxford is that one can work on quietly there, without anybody taking the slightest notice of one. In all other respects I feel that one is perfectly useless there.’

>The chapter on Max Müller takes up 20 pages, and I’m looking forward to peruse this small synopsis of Mr. Müller and his great work with editing and translating the RigVeda.

Of course many european readers will know, that Veda means exactly what it means today in many european languages, namely ‘knowledge’ (‘wissen’ (Germ.), ‘viden’ (Dan.)).

Perhaps my childhoods vernacular in Western-Jutland come close in pronunciation – ‘ved’ or ‘wed’: ‘You have no knowledge of this’ – ‘Du har ingen ‘ved om’ det’. The
Jutish vernacular is said to be closer to Old-Norse than modern Danish.

3. BOILEAU OG DIKTEKUNSTEN. Barokk – Klassisme – Opplysning. Af Asbjoern Aarnes. 1961, Oslo, Johan Grundt Tanum. 183 p., paperback.

From p. 12 I quote this sample:

‘Gaar man til fransk litteratur, er kombinasjonen av skapende innsats og teoretisk overveielse, umiddelbarhet og eftertanke, et av de karakteristiske trekk.

‘Helt fra midten av det 16. aarhundre – fra renessansen – har Frankrike hatt en sammenhjengende tradisjon av forfattere hos hvem de to virksomheter har inngaatt forbindelse, utvivlsomt til fordel både for diktningen, kritikken og kunstteorien.

‘Hos enkelte forfattere har tyngdepunktet ligget i det dikteriske, hos andre i det teoretiske. En forfatter som Charles Baudelaire later til aa ha vaert like opptatt av og begavet for begge virksomheter.

‘Han har en sikker plass baade i de litteraere ideers og i diktekunstens historie. Det samme er tilfelle med Paul Valéry, skjoent det er tvivlsomt om hans dikt har den samme blivende verdi som hans refleksjoner over diktekunsten.

‘At den tradisjon fremdeles er levende i Franrkike, ser man hos forfattere som Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre og Jean Wahl. I deres fagfilosofiske produksjon inngaar estetiske betraktninger, og de har alle, om enn med forskjellig hell, skrevet skjoennlitteraere verker.

‘I fransk litteratur er det ogsaa til stadighet blitt understreket at diktningen, som det skrevne ords kunst, har sitt maal i seg selv. Ja det er ikke saa sjelden blitt kokettert med den tanke at dikteren er ‘unyttig’ for samfunnet og at hans kunst ‘bare’ bestaar i aa sette sammen ord.

‘Francois de Malherbe, en af tradisjonens pionerer, pleide aa si at hvis hans vers kom til aa overleve, saa var det fordi han hadde vaert ‘flink til aa sette sammen ord og stavelser’. For staten mente han ikke at han var nyttigere enn en kjeglespiller.

‘Stéphane Mallarmé, en av tradisjonens seneste representanter, svarte som bekjent da maleren Degas fortalte ham at han hadde saa mange ideer at han ville skrive dikt: ‘Min kjaere Degas, det er ikke med ideer man skriver vers, det er med ord.’

‘Paul Valéry likte ogsaa aa spille paa sin bevissthed om diktningens elementaere forutsetninger. Han kalte sitt lyriske hovedverk ‘La Jeune Parque’ for en ‘exercice’ og bedyret at han ville foretrekke aa skrive ‘noe svakt i full bevissthed fremfor et mesterverk av de skjoenneste, i transe og ute af (seg) selv’. ((Sounds very French to me)).

‘Helt i overenstemmelse med denne instilling er ogsaa Valérys definisjon av en klassiker: ‘Klassisk er den forfatter som baerer en kritiker i seg og som knytter ham intimt til sitt arbeide’.’

Note 1.

Fernisering
8. Feb 2009 15:40, GP

Hej!

Tusind tak for den meget elskværdige invitation til jeres fernisage d. 5.2. Modtaget med posten idag d. 26.1. uagtet jeg kan se den er poststemplet for 11 dage siden. Så den har nok været en tur på Island el. lign?

Det er sandelig en god nyhed, at Du nu skal udstille første gang her i byen, og jeg håber Du får al mulig success.

Jeg regner med jeg kan komme, men det afhænger lidt af situationen den 5. Jeg har dog ganske givet godt af at komme lidt hjemmefra, jeg sidder efterhånden lidt for meget ved computeren. Så når jeg en sjælden gang kommer ned på gaden, er jeg begyndt at undre mig over, at det er gaden der ligger ned og husene der står op, det er jo sådan set lidt mærkeligt, når man ikke kan huske hvordan det plejer at være!

Men som sagt, der kan naturligvis opstå en force majeure, så jeg kun vanskeligt kan komme. For eks. tabte jeg i går et stykke Anton Berg marcipanbrød (den med whiskysmag!), ned bag ved en 1,5 meter høj bogstabel ude i gangen, og skulle det ske igen må jeg opsætte alle andre forehavender.

Men jeg er allerede begyndt at spare sammen til billetten til de 185 busser, som du skrev man skal med. Ligeledes skal jeg på udkig efter en stor sæk til at transportere mine gamle knogler i, så jeg kan få dem alle sammen med helt ud til Ordrup, og så også hjem igen.

Mange hilsener
GP

(originally posted 2009 on (SecretService-hacked (2016) and thus) now defunct blog imma.smartlog.dk -reposted in
https://blocnotesimma.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/retrospektiv-fortegnelse/ )

Note 2. (30.Aug.2019)
As it turned out, the Canon was susceptible to treatment with several – in fact a lot of! – drops of fine oil, applied after having removed the bottom plate. It’s now working greatly in every respect – shutter, light meter and focusing accuracy. I have in fact begun shooting a b&w film with it.

(7./8.June./upd.30.Aug.2019)

Crossposted on gamleboeger.dk and https://blocnotesimma.wordpress.com

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