The Water King's Conservatory and other homes

Last week I visited the annual sensory exhibition at Brandts, the huge art centre in Odense, Denmark. This year's exhibition has been created by installation artist Betina Birkjaer and set designer Luise Midtgaard and it is quite okay, although annoyingly small.

The artists based their exhibition on the ideas of Gaston Bachelard's poetics of space, but I doubt that any of the kids knew. You see, the annual sensory exhibition is first and foremost made for children although their grown-ups are allowed to have a look, too. I went there with my daughter, my old friend from university and her daughter and although we all liked the exhibition, we were all disappointed by the size of it.

First we were guided through a small, dark passage lit up by a single old-fashioned street lamp and we ended up at a front door. Behind the door was a front room, divided into two by huge shelves. You were supposed to take off your shoes and put them on the shelves, which we did, before we entered The Water King's Conservatory.

The Water King's Conservatory was lit by cold, blue light. The roof was made of umbrellas and it was furnished with a fridge, a bathtub and a television that was turned into a fish tank. Because of the light, the room had an eerie feel to it, almost as if you were under water. A small passage led to The Earth Elves' Kingdom, a mostly dark room, so low that we had to crawl on hands and knees. The floor was padded with knitwear such as knitted scarves and sweaters and here and there you could look through lit-up pipes to see what was under the knitwear. We spotted medals, broken fragments of porcelain and garbage.

Next up was The Wind Princess' Bedroom, a huge white tent with a floor made of a soft, thick mattress. Lying on your back of the mattress, you looked up into an open umbrella decorated with feathers. The tent was light and airy and it had four adjacent bed recesses complete with pillows and blankets, each one big enough for two people. The Wind Princess' Bedroom also contained the passage to The Wood Gnomes' Workshop, an old-fashioned printing office complete with type cases and paper where the kids could leave letters and drawings for the Wood Gnomes.

Leaving the exhibition you ended up in the front room again, but in the half behind the shelves. You could get your shoes from there and there was an armchair too where you could sit while putting on your shoes, but that was it. Much too soon we found ourselves outside the front door again, walking past the old-fashioned street lamp. We had spent less than twenty minutes in the exhibition, all of us wondering when the magic would begin, but it never did. The exhibition was nice, but there was nothing that touched you, nothing that scared you or made you laugh or wonder. In fact we all agreed that "The Water King's Conservatory and other homes" was a boring remake of the brilliant and slightly scary sensory exhibition ”Somebody has been dreaming off my house” from 2009.

We went to a nearby café for a glass of wine (and hot chocolate for the kids) and that was probably the highlight of the exhibition. To sum it up I'd have to say that although "The Water King's Conservatory and other homes" is worth a look, be sure to visit the other exhibitions at Brandts, too, otherwise it's going to be a very short pleasure. Three out of five stars: ***

RIP Davy Jones

Sadly Davy Jones of The Monkees passed away on Leap Day, February 29th 2012, at the age of 66. He suffered a heart attack.

I first learned about his passing away on Twitter and it made me so sad. I’m not old enough to have been born into Monkees-fandom, but I do remember “I’m A Believer” and “Daydream Believer” from my childhood, songs that featured Davy’s characteristic Manchester voice. Growing up in Denmark I didn’t know about The Monkees being a TV show as in this country it has never been aired and we only knew them as a pop group. When in 1986 we were finally able to receive British TV stations via cable, I caught my first glimpse of The Monkees show and I was hooked. The show lead me to become a die-hard fan, even to the extend, that I wrote a biography about The Monkees based on interviews I conducted with Peter Tork back in 1997. The biography ended up with the title “The Monkees – caught in a false image” and it was published in 2001. At that time I had the pleasure of corresponding with one of Davy’s sisters and she told me that Davy liked it.

Davy himself I only came to meet once and that was in connection with The Monkees reunion concert on March 19th 1997 at Wembley Arena in London. Here Dave came out to talk to his fans in the parking lot before the concert and it struck me how kind he was. And how short! He was only 5 ft 3 and I could see straight over the top of his head!

My biography about the Monkees sold well, but ironically I had just pulled it off the market a few weeks prior to Davy’s death as I am in the middle of switching publishers. A second edition was in the pipeline, due to be published as an e-book on September 6th 2012, in connection with The Monkees 46th anniversary, but now I guess I have to alter my schedule. I have to rewrite parts of the book and if possible get it out sooner in memory of Davy.

Over the past 30 years The Monkees – and thereby Davy Jones – have come to mean a lot to me. They have given me so many hours of quality entertainment, not just from their records and TV-show, but also though their magnificent feature film “HEAD”, the quaint TV-special “33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee” and their amazing live performances. Heck, I wouldn’t even have a proof reader today if it wasn’t for The Monkees, as our friendship and collaboration started out because of a common interest in The Monkees! Today my Australian based proof reader is one of my closest friends and to think that I would never have known her hadn’t it been for them. The mere thought makes me shudder!

So, thank you, Davy. Thanks for the many good things you brought into my life with The Monkees. You’ll always be remembered. Rest in peace.

PayPal censorship

You are no longer allowed to buy the Bible. Or certain plays by Shakespeare. Or some of the works by Stephen King, Anne Rice and J. R. R. Tolkien. Why? Because PayPal said so!

As of today, ebook distributors who use PayPal (such as BookStrand, Smashwords, AllRomanceEbooks) are no longer allowed to sell books containing types of erotica that their payment processor PayPal doesn’t like. Otherwise PayPal pulls the plug on them. So what types of erotica would that be, you ask? Nasty types, of course, or more precisely bestiality, rape, incest and underage erotica. Well, that certainly is nasty, you say? You think it’s a good thing then, what PayPal is doing? No, it isn’t. Because this, my friends, is censorship.

Censorship is never good. Never ever. If you don’t want to read a certain book, then don’t. Nobody’s forcing you to buy or read books that you don’t like, because you have the freedom of choice. But now PayPal is forcing you to refrain from making that choice. In fact, the payment processor is now taking away your right to think for yourself.

Some of the stuff in the books now banned by PayPal I find very nasty, of course, but I still defend it, as I don’t believe in censorship. Or to use a quote attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” But then again, Voltaire is one of the writers who - according to PayPal - you’re not allowed to read, because censoring books containing bestiality, rape, incest and underage erotica doesn’t just mean censoring porn. It means censoring some of the greatest works in literature ever.

I wonder if PayPal has realised that by preventing readers to buy books containing bestiality, rape, incest and underage erotica, they have banned books like Paradise Lost, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Bible, Ulysses, Story of O, American Psycho, Slaughterhouse Five, Sophocles’ Oedipus, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and several Shakespeare plays just to mention a few. So now Shakespeare, James Joyce and the Bible are no good for us? They are abominations that ought to be banned? I don’t get it. I really don’t. If PayPal had been around earlier, most of our literary treasures would never have seen the day of light. Shame on you, PayPal, shame on you!

Some will undoubtedly argue that it’s up to PayPal who they want to do business with, but with a corporation as big and powerful as PayPal I don’t agree. PayPal almost have a total monopoly of online money transactions and thus the power to put a stop to free speech. It is a scary thought that our right of freedom of expression is now controlled by a payment processor!

I’m not stupid, though. I’m sure that PayPal is going to turn a blind eye to Shakespeare and the Bible, letting them survive, but in a way I hope that book distributors are going to pull ALL the titles in question off the market. That way more PayPal users would come to realise just how horrible the idea is to have a payment processor censoring the book industry. I hope you’ll join me in demanding PayPal to back off or else we’ll pull the plug on them. All 350 million of us! Please, sign the petition against PayPal censorship: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/7/stop-internet-censorship

The Woman in Black

Director James Watkins has taken on Susan Hill’s 1983 novel “The Woman in Black” and made quite an efficient horror film out of it. The novel has already been made into a successful television film and a stage play, that is the second longest-running in the history of London’s West End, and now good old Hammer Film Production has made it into a film. To me Hammer equals horror. It makes me think of their many films about Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy not to mention their “Hammer House of Horror” series. But where the previous productions all had an air of kitschy B-movie about them – that was their charm so to speak - “The Woman in Black” is a 100% quality film.

In many ways the film version of “The Woman in Black” is a classic Victorian ghost story, although it takes place in the Edwardian era. It tells the story of the lawyer Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) who lives in London with his four-year-old son as his wife has died after childbirth. Kipps has financial problems and is assigned to handle the estate of Alice Drablow who owned the desolate and secluded Eel Marsh House, where she had lived with her husband, son Nathaniel, and sister, Jennet Humfrye (Liz White). The house is situated near the small town Crythin Gifford, but it is completely cut off from the mainland at high tide, as it is surrounded by marshes. When Kipps arrive at Crythin Gifford, the locals are very hostile and try to make him leave immediately. Only the innkeeper’s wife Mrs. Fisher (Mary Stockley), the landowner Sam Daily (Ciarán Hinds) and his wife (Janet McTeer) show Kipps some kindness. While sorting through Mrs Drablow's papers at Eel Marsh House, Kipps experiences an increasing amount of terrifying noises and chilling events and gradually he comes to realise that the house and the town is haunted by an evil spirit that takes its revenge by killing young children.

The plot of the film is rather transparent, at least I figured it out in less than fifteen minutes, but still the story is a creepy, scary, chilling one with many a shock in store. Not for the fainthearted for sure as there is a reason why it is rated “suitable only for 15 years or older”. The film makes heavy use of jump scares, though, which is a bit annoying, as it isn’t needed. The story itself is chilling enough on its own, but I suppose Watkins has wanted to make sure that the audience’s blood pressure is raised most of the time. The film also has a rather dodgy ending where Kipps seems unsuitably happy about the way things turn out. Here scriptwriter Jane Goldman has made a serious a faux pas by turning the tragic ending of the novel into a very strange, happy one where Kipps’ joy totally contradicts the whole premise of the story.

“The Woman in Black” is Daniel Radcliffe’s first film after his decade of portraying Harry Potter and that is a bit tongue-in-cheek. Why? Because in the 1989 television version of “The Woman in Black” it was Adrian Rawlins who played the haunted lawyer and in the Harry Potter films Rawlins was - of course - James Potter, Harry Potter’s dad. In a ghost story about parents and sons, it is a bit funny to let Radcliffe take over his film-father’s old part. I haven’t seen the television version, but I’m pretty sure that Radcliffe outshines his “dad”. Radcliffe is what? Twenty-two? In the last Harry Potter film he was supposed to be seventeen and now in “The Woman in Black” he’s a thirty-something family man and he’s convincing. When watching “The Woman in Black” you don’t think about Harry Potter, you don’t think about age, you are just wholly absorbed in the portrait that Radcliffe paints of Arthur Kipps. Because don’t get this wrong. No matter how chilling “The Woman in Black” is, it is not just a ghost story, it is also a one man show. The film IS Radcliffe as all the other actors are just necessary but almost invisible supporting cast members and you don’t really remember their performances afterwards. You do with Radcliffe. Despite his young age, he is an extremely talented actor, in my opinion one of the best in the world at the moment, and I hope to see a lot more from him in years to come.

The film runs a short 95 minutes.
Three out of five stars: *** (but five to Daniel Radcliffe!)

Where to get "Greatest Hits"

 "Greatest Hits 1996-2011" is now available a lot of places. You can, of course, still by it at Smashwords, but you'll find it available through Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk as well. Barnes & Noble and Apple iBooks, Kobo, Sony and Diesel sell it, too. Prices range from $2.99 to $5.74, Amazon.com being the most expensive, and in the UK you can get it for £1.98. I've checked out some of the editions and especially Apple's iBook edition looks amazing. Please, buy and read. I could really do with some reviews, too, especially on Smashwords and Amazon.

 I'll leave you with a funny book trailer that my daughter made for me. You can watch it here.

Greatest Hits 1996-2011

 After 30 years of paper books, publishers and 15% royalties, it is finally here: my first ever indie ebook! It's called "Greatest Hits 1996-2011" and it's a celebration of my first fifteen years as a short story author.

"Greatest Hits 1996-2011" consists of my ten most popular short stories. The collection is formed like a literary Top 10 chart, counting down from number 10 to number 1. The short stories have been selected based on sales figures like in any other chart, and the selection has been made from stories previously published in Danish and English short story collections, anthologies and literary magazines.

The collection includes "The Blackbird", "Bigal's Nasty Café", "The Smiling Skeleton" and the literary novella "Mooncalf". It takes you on a journey into my trademark magic realism universe populated by rusty rock stars, faithless lovers, ghosts and goddesses, where tall tales of empathy, prejudice, love and death unfold in the encounter between reality and paranormality. Hopefully you'll feel well entertained on the journey to places like Manhattan, Hell and Copenhagen - and a bit wiser afterwards, too!

"Greatest Hits 1996-2011" is available here through Smashwords and on Amazon.

Books I read in 2011

I didn’t read as much in 2011 as in previous years, probably because I’ve been so busy writing, not only Don Powell’s biography, but also stuff of my own. You see, after 30 years of paper books, publishers and 15% royalties, I’ve decided to go indie, so hopefully no less than five of my works are going to get out in 2012 as indie ebooks.

Anyway, when reading through my book list, it is fairly simple to see what has interested me in 2011: manga, sci-fi, horror, mysteries, fantasy and high quality literature. And then of course 2011 was the year, when I stopped smoking! :-)

Here’s the list:
Aki, Katsu: “Manga Love Story”, vol. 1
Aki, Katsu: “Manga Love Story”, vol. 2
Arden, William: “The Mystery of The Shrinking House”
Arthur, Robert: “The Mystery of The Stuttering Parrot”
Barker, Clive: “Abarat”
Bradbury, Ray: A Graveyard for Lunatics”
Bradbury; Ray: “Something Wicked This Way Comes”
Bradbury, Ray: The Illustrated Man”
Carey, M. V.: “The Mystery of The Flaming Footprints”
Carleton, Barbee Oliver: “The Witches’ Bridge”
Carr, Alan: “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking”
Coope, Katy: “How to Draw Manga”
Garner, Alan: “Elidor”
Garner, Alan: “The Moon of Gomrath”
Gray, Peter: “How to draw Manga – Heroes and Villains”
Hart, Christopher: “Kids draw Manga Shoujo”
Hatori, Bisco: “Ouran High School Host Club”, vol. 14
Hatori, Bisco: “Ouran High School Host Club”, vol. 15
Hatori, Bisco: “Ouran High School Host Club”, vol. 16
Higgins Clark, Mary: “Loves Music, Loves to Dance”
Jones, Terry: “Furious Resonance”
Keene, Carolyn: The Clue in the Crumbling Wall”
Murakami, Maki: “Gravitation” vol. 1
Nakamura, Shungiku: “Junjo Romantica” vol. 13
Patterson, James & Peter de Jonge: “Miracle on the 17th Green”
Straub, Peter: “Ghost Story”
Tolkien, J. R. R.: “The Hobbit or There and Back Again”
Trudeau, G. B.: “Doonesbury”, vol. 20
Trudeau, G.B.: “Doonesbury”, vol. 28
Zwigtman, Floortje: “Auf Leben und Tod”

I especially recommend the books by Floortje Zwigtman (I was really sorry to see her Adrian Mayfield series come to an end with “Auf Leben und Tod” as they are the best books I have ever read), Terry Jones (I met him on the train to Birmingham, smashing bloke) and Alan Carr (I stopped smoking because of his book). Happy reading!