sansernes stilhed (en meget kort anmeldelse)

Sidder omgivet af mennesker og læser Christel Wiinblad De elskende i ét stræk, 

det er sandt, det er sådan det er at være forelsket og måske skulle jeg gøre det mindre, tænker jeg, og
rejser mig op og tager mine ting og afleverer min kaffekop og jeg går udenfor hvor jeg tænder en
cigaret og møder Hella Joof der er faret vild, og jeg tænker i skrift, det er længe siden sidst, 

og solen skinner og jeg er underlig indeni.

http://www.academicbooks.dk/node/16061576

Impressions of Knudepunkt

I'm coming down from my Knudepunkt cloud. For you muggles, it's an amazing international (Scandinavian run) larp convention, and it was my first time there and it was amazing. Three day program, 31 countries, 580 participants.
I probably knew about 80 of the people there when I first arrived, I'm not new to larping, I just never went because - what's the big deal, right? Who knows why I think the silly things I do.
Anyway, I'm too full of impressions to write a narrative about the experience, so I'm just going to note a few scattered thoughts.

First of all. Polish vodka is great, it really is. The past 7/8 months I've been working on College of Wizardry with an organizer team consisting mostly of Poles. Until this weekend I'd met them once or less, communicating via Facebook, dropbox, e-mails and whatnot. It was wonderful actually meeting them. I now have two Polish names, I remember neither because of the vodka.
Update: Frania, one of them is Frania.

The Norwegian ritual. I've joined a cult. I don't mind.

None of the Fins carried knives for the onion I'd carried in my bag for days. The Russians did. This all makes perfect sense.

Vegetable Delight: one part gin, two parts lemon soda, tea spoon of tomato juice (if no real tomatoes can be found), and ice. Garnish with a slice of lime, a stick of celery, two slices of cucumber and rather a lot of onion.

I thought I knew what immersion is. I didn't. No one does. It has now become part of my academic vocabulary like discourse and post colonial. The same goes for Nordic Larp.
Immersion is what happens when you trick yourself into believing that you are not only yourself but also someone else, it is usually approached as a state of mind, but it might actually be closely connected to the body. Mind and body unity. Larpers are very physical thinkers.

The recipe for the drink The Nordic Larper's dream: Whatever liquid you can get your hands on + tears. Preferably your own but someone else's will do, too.

Space is important. It defines how we move, who we meet on our way, how close we stand together and how much money we have to pay for the location. It also makes people KRÆNKT if they have trouble moving about or there aren't enough bathrooms or they are cold all the time. Unless it's a nordic larp and they wan't to feel bad.

Larp can be political, educational and still "fun" (that is kind of the point). A rather large amount of people manage to make a living out of it. Some of these people change the world for kids in war zones, make children dream of becoming astronouts or summon nazi zombies from the polluted parts of the ocean.

I disagree with a lot of larp theory. Which is (suprisingly?) more empowering than the instant 'I know this already but someone else gave it words' feeling. Disagreeing can really light up my, in this instance feverish, brain. For example I don't think we generally roleplay to escape our lives as one point stated, I think we do it to add to them. I think of larp as a playing to learn, as something essentially joyful.

Castles are the future. So are black boxes of all sizes. Play can come in many shapes, it can be carried out in every perfect little detail, it can be experimental, musical, blind.

Trust can replace rules.

More. The general feeling of openness, the easy conversations, the way I spent the entire convention walking from one hug into the next. The dancing, the flowing, the cuddle puddle, all the women suddenly turning up with rather realistic looking beards. The really bad jokes.
Next year it'll be on a boat. I'm getting on that boat.

The bird

After many nights together and a lot of shared moments, I have, I must admit somewhat fallen for my lover. Our dynamic is a curious and careful one - when we are together it is raw and honest, and when he looks at my naked body I have no desire to hide myself in any way, but the agreement has always been that we are not a couple. We are not exclusive, which I enjoy, and we do not own each other although we take one another into account in our actions.

I cannot call him any other word, and I haven't needed to. But I'm beginning to long for a language to describe the things we have and do, and it musn't carry the same connotations that ordinary word-strings does. The words I can't say get stuck in my body like pains and pleasures. These days I tell him that I have a bird beneath the skin of my chest. It is a bird made of a single word (or three) and sometimes it gets so heavy, that I feel like I will fall over. When he is hurting I can barely stand for the weight of that bird. I tell him that I think I want to let it out, but that I am afraid he will kill it or catch it with a movement so it shatters like thin clay.

He did say that he might like the bird, that it might be beautiful and he wouldn't want to break it. But I'm not sure he understood what I meant.

croquis 3

This was a gift from an artist.