Aki's Blog

In a dinousaur (velociraptor) attack, someone (I don’t know who) got his head bit of. Then the dinosaur ran away laughing. My mother, Karin and I were standing chocked as we saw the head jumping back on to his head again, and him turning back to life. Karin and I ran away to explore the phenomenon closer, slowly realising that humans through evolution has learned to have their heads returned to them if they’re decapitated. We ran back to mom and asked her where the man with the head was. She answered that she had burnt his body as she didn’t think he had survived, even when he yelled at her to stop.

Tom Cruise is one of the few super-famous actors who I believe actually deserve their popularity, who actually are good on stage. He and Johnny Depp are the two I can mention right up front that I feel this way about. The problem with him is how he almost only acts action films, and action is probably my least favorite genre in film. So I really love his performance in 2003′s drama-action-history film The Last Samurai.In The Last Samurai, Tom Cruise is Captain Nathan Algren, a war hero tormented of the memories of the Indian wars in which he acted, and the many innocent he has slayed. As the emperor of Japan wants to civilize his country, extincting the few samurai led by Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe), Algren is hired to lead the country’s new troups, basically farmers who hasn’t seen a gun before. After a failed battle in which the entire Japanese army is killed, Algren is captured by Katsumoto. After living with the samurai for a while, he realises that they aren’t the enemy, they are the ones trying to capture the natural beauty of Japan and keep it. Slowly, we are to realise that the emperor isn’t a “bad guy”, but more of a weak puppet led by assistants and war generals, while the emperor himself is unsure whether to keep or destroy the samurai. Throughout the film, Katsumoto several times says that if the emperor wants him dead, he has but to ask, and he will gladly take his life. The emperor never replies.The Last Samurai is one of my absolute favorite films, a great epic story that has everything: great actors, one of the best music scores ever in film history (by Hans Zimmer), love, death, cool weapons (okay, I admit it, I love Japanese weapons, samurai and ninjas), and a grande ending fight ending with the scene when Captain Alger meets the emperor, and gives him Katsumoto’s katana, and the ending quotes always makes me thrill of epic:”Tell me how he died.”"I’ll tell you how he lived.”I never have Swedish subtitles on while watching an English film, but I couldn’t avoid seeing the Swedish title “Den Siste Samurajen” (“The Last Samurai” in singular) on the cover. What the…? Translators should try getting their facts straight. Director Edward Zwick has himself said that the title refers to the last samurai troop, and NOT Captain Nathan Algren. Get your facts straight.Again: A great film, recommended to everyone. A great epic, with perfect balance of drama, history and action.

“It’s an honour dying at your side.”
“It’s been an honour living by yours.”

- 300

A short essay on artist Vincent van Gogh.

 Vincent van Gogh has long been famous for his influence on impressionism, expressionism, and simply the way we understand art today. Many artists today still consider van Gogh’s style to be the perfect art, which cannot be reached again, despite that his dying was over one hundred years ago. Artists inspired by van Gogh can count in thousands. One clear example is Stefan Duncan, who often is referred to as “America’s van Gogh”, and whose style is very much alike the old master’s. What has inspired the most artists over time is van Gogh’s way of choosing and using colours, which is easily shown for example on his Sunflowers pieces.

Post-artistic life

The artist who grew to change art history was born on March 30, 1853, in the Dutch city of Groot-Zundert. Little is known about his childhood, except that he didn’t show any interest in art whatsoever until 1870, when he was employed by the Hague gallery. In 1873, he was transferred to London and to Paris two years later. However, after this van Gogh gave up his dreams of becoming a professional art dealer, to instead follow in his father’s religious footsteps and began taking lessons in evangelization. He soon abandoned this idea too, and joined the miners of Borinage to found a ministry. This experience with the working class later enabled him to draw several of his paintings, most clearly his famous painting The Potato Eaters, and inspired him of the idea of depicting peasant life.

Becoming an artist

At this period of van Gogh’s life, his brother Theo was pushing him to start making something out of his life, to leave some kind of a trace of himself into the memory of human kind. Together with his brother, he decided to become an artist. His talent was doubted both by himself and by his parents, as he was inexperienced on the subject from before. But as his brother offered to support him both mentally and financially, he decided to try this new way of life.

            In 1880, he started a nine-month education in Brussels, and in 1881 he moved home to continue his training individually, trying out different types of drawing with different subjects, colours and styles. Van Gogh’s first sketches and paintings depicted peasant life, probably inspired by his earlier years in Borinage. In the end of 1881, he moved away from home to acquire lessons in drawing from Anton Mauve, his cousin by marriage. At the same time, he started a controversial relationship with Sien Hoomik, a pregnant prostitute who also already had a child. Mauve heavily criticised his choice of partner, leading to them parting ways, though van Gogh continued training his skills on his own, and often used Hoomik as his model.

            In 1882, he decided to end his relationship with Hoomik, and moved to Drenthe, as had artists such as van Rappard and Mauve done before him. It didn’t take long until he moved back, home to his parents. This was when his personal style took off, after being introduced to France’s newfound artist Jean-Franqois Millet, of whom he started to model many of his drawings. He soon moved from home again, renting a studio from a Catholic church, in which he started studying anatomy.

The Potato Eaters and Paris

His first greater piece was entitled The Potato Eaters, finished in 1885. The piece did prove his talent, but not until after his death. After this failure, he decided to search for further education, and joined thus an academy in Antwerp, where he first heard of Peter Paul Rubens and several Japanese artists. Both these factors would affect his style enormously.

            In 1886, van Gogh and his brother Theo moved to Paris and experienced the art of many post-impressionistic artists. He realised how out of date the darker colours he had used in The Potato Eaters were, and dropped this palette in order to start experimenting with brighter colours. At the same time he started trying out the styles he had found in Japanese artworks a year earlier, mixing this with the ‘normal’, Western style.

Sunflowers and mental illness

Moving to Paris had resulted in many new connections in the artistic and post-impressionistic world, such as Gauguin, Pissarro, Monet and Bernard. Van Gogh and Gauguin moved together to Arles to create a school of art, and it was in Arles that van Gogh started drawing the sunflowers that later would be one of his essential pieces.

            By the fall of 1888, van Gogh started to show his first signs of mental illness. He started suffering from epilepsy as well as psychotic attacks and delusions. After threatening Gauguin with a knife, he returned to their home and cut his own ear off, and gave it to a prostitute as a gift. This episode had him hospitalized, and when he later was released he found that Gauguin has turned his back on him, leaving Arles, thus leaving van Gogh’s dream to shatter.

            In the end of 1888, van Gogh travelled to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he committed himself to a mental institution. Even though this led to impossibility to draw for long periods of time, he still managed to complete The Starry Night, which is seen as one of the central pieces of his life. As in all of the works during his asylum period, The Starry Night is covered with swirling lines and circles, which by many is believed to symbolize his mental state.

Death and after-life

After leaving the mental institution in 1890, van Gogh suffered from a period of depression, believing his life to be miserably wasted. He actively created several new paintings for a while, until he on July 27, 1890 attempted suicide; he shot himself in the chest, thus dying from the wounds two days later.

            After Vincent van Gogh’s death, his brother Theo took care his paintings, and after his own death half a year later, so did his widow, who dedicated the rest of life to give him the recognition he deserved. Almost immediately his painting started selling massively in Holland, and it didn’t take long till he was known worldwide as one of the world’s greatest artists. The man who only sold one painting in his lifetime still is considered one of the most ingenious men.

Read.

I have always been thinking. Always, since I was born. Love, hate, sorrow, religion, why is the world as it is? What is the reason of hate, what causes sorrow? Sorrow is a matter we need to accept, someone we are forced to understand and cope with. Everyone dies, and that is a fact and not anything we are able to change. But we can change the fact that people are killed young, that animals (and by animals I include the human being) are killed every day, that some starve and some are bathing in champagne. We can change the fact that some people does not live a life, simply because no one let’s them.

Throughout my life, I have been interested in several religious standings, most frequently Christianity, however I do not agree with too many parts to call myself a Christian, which I have discovered recently. Something to make clear right away is that I am a vegetarian, believing that the value of every creature on the Earth is the same, something that the Bible does not agree with. What this world need is a new Bible, a new book of truth with the modern ideas, the updated world which I don’t see any religions following. Wherever I turn, I find nothing but basic hate against women, homosexuality, other animals, other people. What is wrong with this world, is everyone born to hate? I believe not.

I will not call what I hereby create a religion, but I will call it a way of life. I hope for others to join me in my crusade against misery and hate, my crusade for a world in which justice and love without exception prevails. This is a protest, a protest in which I wish your help. If others ever care to join me, please write me an e-mail and I will create a member list in which you are featured. Ofcourse, you can all listen to these advices on a better way to live without becoming a member.

Thank you for reading.

Yours sincerely,
Anton Johansson

English essay on how Candy’s dog foreshadowed Lennie’s death in John Steinbeck’s book Of Mice and Men. Finished on December 14th, 2007.

Long before the death of Candy’s old dog, several references between the lines suggest its faith – as well as, later revealed, Lennie’s.

            The first time the dog is ever mentioned, on page 45, it is said in the first description that it “struggled lamely to the side of the room and lay down, grunting softly to himself”. Of course this clearly shows the state it is in; old, sick and tired of apparently everything. The state of the dog is again referred to by Carlson far later in the novella: “Got no teeth. He’s all stiff with rheumatism”. He uses this over and over again as a convincing argument for killing the dog, sending Candy on a guilt trip not to – “Well, you ain’t being kind to him keeping him alive”. The description Carlson gives can of course as well be an over-exaggeration since all he cares about in that moment is to receive allowance of executing the dog, but it obviously isn’t far from truth since Candy doesn’t stand a chance to protest.

            As the dog is old and useless on the ranch, it is but a companion and friend to the old swamper, and no one but him seems to think of him as more than a thing, especially Carlson as he asks Candy to take the dog’s life – saying “Why’n’t you shoot him, Candy?”, as if he was a thing.

            Most of the reasons of killing the dog are clearly selfish, even though Carlson – as pointed out – uses Candy’s emotions to make him agree. Carlson as well clearly had a bad day, with losing the horse shoe-pitching (“He don’t give nobody else a chance to win”), and that result in an irritated and easily annoyed mood that heavily advances when he sniff the smell of Candy’s dog, taking out the frustration on it and the owner (“God awmighty that dog stinks. Get him outta here, Candy!”). If Candy only had obeyed him, taking out the dog of the bunkhouse, none of the tragedies probably would’ve happened. This shows how the idea of killing the dog only is a temporary thought, something that doesn’t really matter to Carlson in the whole picture.

            As soon as Candy has been forced into an agreement, Slim and Carlson leads the dog “out into the darkness” which obviously refers to the physical darkness, but as well perhaps the dog’s future mental darkness – death. Then a sudden, silent tension reaches the bunk house as the rest of the gang, including Candy, sits still, awaiting the shot. As they hear it fire, no reaction is seen till Candy silently moves to his side on the bunk bed, facing the wall making the others unable to see him, and starts to sob.

            After the loss of tension, Candy says to George “I ought to have shot that dog myself […] I shouldn’t ought to have let no stranger shoot my dog” – even though none of them thought of it then, this seemingly innocent sentence eventually meant the end of Lennie’s life.

As George in the end of the novella shoots Lennie to his death, the reader can understand how John Steinbeck has placed several connections between this and the shooting of Candy’s dog.

            On several occasions, the dog and Lennie is shown to be comparable by similar description, and on other Lennie is given characteristics of an animal. An example of this is in the very first description of him in the novella’s beginning: “dragging his feet […] the way a bear drags his paws”. In the dog’s first description it is mentioned how it “struggled lamely”. For the first thing, Lennie is here being compared with an animal (a bear), and for the second, they are compared in a similar way. For both of them this is the first description, even though the dog’s comes about forty pages later.

            Another thing is that George was obviously affected or even inspired by the dog’s death as he decided to kill Lennie – yes, he decided to; at first it seemed to me like the idea was sudden and impulsive, but then I realised that he had stolen Carlson’s Luger about an hour earlier. As an example of this “inspiration”, there is a part (already pointed out nine lines above) where Candy explains the remorse of not helping the dog out of the painful world – a.k.a. killing it – himself. In the same sentence, he also says that he didn’t want a stranger to shoot his dog.

            Then turn Candy into George. Turn the dog into Lennie. Turn the stranger into Curley. Lennie has to die, and Lennie will die, for Curley has now dedicated his life to finding and killing him in order to avenge his wife’s death. And even if he fails, even if Lennie succeeds in escaping, the whole procedure will eventually restart; George knows it has happened before and that it will happen again, that Lennie’s state is chronic. If now Lennie has to die within the last few hours or so, then George realises, inspired by Candy’s words, that he doesn’t want Curley to kill him. Through the time they travelled together, he has thought of Lennie as his companion, but as well his responsibility and burden. He doesn’t want anyone else to ease his burden. This is his responsibility, and if he now fails keeping Lennie alive on a straight row, if he has to die, he wants to finish it off himself.

            Another “inspiration” to George may have been what Slim said in the scene where the dog’s future is to be decided, that if he got old and crippled, he’d want to be killed. Lennie is – mentally – useless and what can be defined as “crippled”, like the dog physically. And if Lennie isn’t able to decide to commit suicide, then isn’t that George’s job to decide for him?

            Even if a big part of the reasons George has of murdering him is to help him, sadly there are selfish reasons as well. Once again compare Lennie with Candy’s dog. Except of the unselfish reasons, the reasons of killing it was simple – it smelled. If you had an old pair of grown out socks that really smelled so it stank in the whole house, what would you do? Throw it away? They are of absolutely no use at all, and it’s even worse than that, they are going on your nerves since they really, really smell! Of course you’d throw them away. That’s exactly what’s going throw Carlson’s mind about the dog. It is of no use at all since it’s old and crippled. And it’s annoying. So there we go. Throw it away. Kill it.

            Like the dog, Lennie is of absolutely no use to anyone. Maybe he used to be a company to George, but presumably not anymore – George has obviously made lots of new friends on the ranch in the last few weeks, and he simply doesn’t need Lennie anymore. Lennie clearly makes lots of trouble to George, and it is especially clear when George sees the body of Curley’s wife and tells Candy to pretend like he hasn’t been there – for if the other knew he was one of first to see it, they might have thought he and Lennie did it together. It is early in the novella seen how Lennie’s wrongs often negatively affect George, as the two of them are forced into fleeing Weed. Lennie is of no use at all, and he is even worse, he destroys for others.

            Lennie is an old and crippled dog. And he smells.

George doesn’t have much of a role in the scene where Carlson and Candy debates on whether to kill the dog or not, since he is new on the ranch and knows he doesn’t have much to say that can make a difference. The first real thing he says in the scene is also to change subject – “Seen a guy in Weed got an Airedale could heard sheep. Learned it from other dogs”. It is obvious how he does feel he wants to help Candy, but can’t really stand up for him. However, I don’t think George really have an opinion in whether the dog is better of dead or alive; all he wants is to remain everything the way it is. For once, everything is starting to get better for him and Lennie, and he feels that every change can destroy everything.

In the same way, George for long hesitated before finally killing Lennie, not only in the end, standing there with Carlson’s shotgun, but all through their lives. He kills him at first when he has to, when he knows that Curley will kill him anyway. Even though he wasn’t the killer of the dog, he hesitated and tried to stop the shooting by changing subject – I think he knew that the dog sooner or later was going to be shot, but that he, naive as a child, was trying to postpone it for as long as he could, in the same way as he postponed Lennie’s death.

In the killing of Candy’s dog, Slim supports Carlson, and in a way the same is done with Lennie. Slim is the only one who in the in the final scene understands what happened between George and Lennie. But he doesn’t call in a sheriff to arrest George for murder; he pretends to believe how Lennie was the one to steal Carlson’s Luger, and that George only killed him in self defence. As Slim and George walks off to have a drink, the reader understand that beyond the tragedies that coloured the book’s pages red, there lies a brand new friendship.

            While he understands what happened, Carlson still hasn’t understood a bit of the truth, believing George’s lies about self-defence. Here, I think Carlson represents the majority of humanity and its blindness it is towards war, segregation, racism, animal cruelty and other cruelties in the world. To me, Carlson’s final comment is like a conclusion on the whole novella, all the inner meanings and hidden messages, everything Steinbeck wants to show with it.

Even though Lennie’s death at first seems unnecessary and tragic, you realise that he maybe had to go, that the world now is better for everyone, especially with George’s and Slim’s sudden friendship. Of Mice and Men is to me a novella where there is a fine line between friendship and hatred as well as good and evil. In the end of it, I was shocked to read about George killing Lennie, as he to me definitely was the good, but suddenly turned evil – then I realised how this actually instead showed the potential of his goodness.

            That Slim helped in the killing of the dog at first may seem not to fit in with his character and the description of his status almost being god-like, but I think Steinbeck had him performing this role to show the every day society. Everyone can kill, everyone kills. That he can do it no matter how high status he has among the others on the ranch refers to how exactly everyone does it, no matter who they are. And with “kill” I don’t mean killing other humans, or necessarily not even killing other animals, but to hurt, let down, and such. I think that the underlying message for this might be something like that everyone kill, everyone will kill always kill and this will always be this way – something that refers to the meaning of the title. “The best laid schemes of mice and men often goes askew”, the sentence of a Scottish poem (here translated to modern English) from which the title “Of Mice and Men” origins, means that whatever we do, no matter how hard we try, it will all go wrong in the end. And this will never stop. Slim is, however, shown to be a bit shaken as he goes out with Carlson to shoot the dog, which shows that there might maybe be a hope somewhere in the world. Maybe, the best laid schemes one day won’t go askew.

Nearby where Lennie sits by the river waiting for George, a play is performed before us. The scene about the heron and the two water snakes easily sticks out from the rest, since it is one out of few scenes not at all affected by humans – it is about other animals only, while the rest of the novella has been about humans.

            I believe there is a connection between this scene and the ending of the novella; I think the heron is supposed to be compared to the world, and the first water snake, that is killed, Lennie. As the world indirectly kills Lennie, friends of him are saved – as mentioned before, Lennie’s death is to save the rest; he is one that has to go. It is however confusing to me how it is his friends that are his enemies in Lennie’s case, and still it isn’t another water snake that kills it, but a heron. This leads me into wondering if it is this way because it would be too unrealistic having a water snake killing one of it’s kind, or is it because I am totally wrong – a question to which I can’t find an answer.

After the scene with the heron and the water snakes, Lennie is starting to hallucinate. The first hallucination is his dead Aunt Clara (“And then out of Lennie’s head there came a little fat old woman”), who spoke to him in his own voice, over and over again telling him about his wrongs (“You do bad things”) and about how nice George has been to him all along, despite how he returned the favours (“Min´ George because he’s such a nice fella an’ good to you”). She also tells him how he, no matter what he promises now, never actually will leave George to live independently in a cave (“You jus’ say that, you’re always just saying that, an’ you know sonofabitching well you ain’t ever gonna do it”). After that, Aunt Clara is replaced by a big rabbit (“Aunt Clara was gone, and out of Lennie’s head there came a gigantic rabbit”) who in the same voice tells him that he’ll never ever be able to tend rabbits (“You ain’t fit to lick the boots of no rabbit”). It then starts telling him about what George will do to him when he finds him (“He’s gonna beat the hell outta you with a stick”).

            These visions are obviously sign’s of Lennie’s mental state of paranoia and schizophrenia. Aunt Clara presumably was the one who back in the old days always yelled at Lennie when he did something wrong, and therefore she is the one he now has to face when he has done something terribly bad – killing Curley’s wife. That she (and later also the rabbit) talks in his voice is obviously a sign for how he can’t separate different persons from each others, and that this is the voice he is used to. What Aunt Clara and the rabbit tells Lennie is exactly what he deep inside knows or fears – that George sooner or later will leave him, and that he will hurt him or at least not let him tend the rabbits. In the end he also turns out to be right, and even worse; George doesn’t only hurt him, but kills him, and then leaves him. Death is clearly something that Lennie hardly can cope with, and that has been shown several times throughout the novella: he doesn’t think much of food as a life preserver, as he thinks he easily can survive alone in a cave. He also has killed several mice and a puppy for petting them too hard, as well as Curley’s wife. When he had the fight with Curley’s wife that ended with her being killed, he at first thought that her sudden stillness meant that she started to obey his orders of silence. In the same way, he underexaggerates what George will do to him, even though he understands he will do something. That he all along keeps arguing with the two characters (“I’ve knew George since – I forget when – and he ain’t never raised his han’ to me with a stick. He’s nice to me. He ain’t gonna be mean”) is another sign on his confusion. When he can’t agree with himself on how things are and what George is going to do with him, he creates another character to argue with.

            Aunt Clara is as mentioned replaced with the rabbit as Lennie starts thinking of rabbits (“George ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits now”), which makes it clearer how what he sees is in direct combination with his mind.

When George comes to kill Lennie where he sits by the river, there is a calm and quiet feeling about him, and at first he doesn’t say much. He lies to Lennie, telling him that he is not going to leave him, that he will stay by his side. When Lennie happily answers “I knowed it, you ain’t that kind” he doesn’t answer. It is clear how everything’s not right with George, and that he’s not telling Lennie the complete truth. Lennie seems to notice this, and his happiness soon fades as he realises that something is wrong when George don’t start to yell at him. Over and over again, he reminds George of the bad thing he’s done: “George, I done another bad thing […] George, ain’t you gonna give me hell?”. At last, George is forced to start yelling at him, and Lennie keeps encouraging him (“Go on, George”). Then the conversation turns into George yet another time telling the story about their future life, with the rabbits and how they life “on the fatta the land”. Obviously, he tells the story to comfort, assuring him that everything is normal and that nothing is going to change despite what he did; they will still get their own grounds and he will still get to tend the rabbits.

            It is obvious how George is nervous since he several times stops, and as he says “Take off your hat, Lennie”, his voice is shaking (“He said shakily”). He has the excuse that “the air feels fine” but presumably he don’t want it to be in the way when he shoots him in the back of his head further on. He then asks him to look across the river (“Look acrost the river, Lennie, an’ I’ll tell you so you can almost see it”) – so he can’t see how George prepares the shotgun he stole from Carlson. He then stands silent with the safety snapped off and holds the shotgun behind Lennie. He clearly hesitates (“George raised the gun and his hand shook, and he dropped his hand to the ground again”) but is in a way encouraged to continue by Lennie, as he keeps asking him to “go on”; even though Lennie means the story, of course it is misinterpreted by the confused and stressed mind of George’s. It gets even worse when Lennie asks him, “George, when are we gonna do it?”.

            Before pulling the trigger, Lennie asks George once again if it’s sure he’s not mad, and George answers “No, Lennie. I ain’t mad. I never been mad, an’ I ain’t now. That’s a thing I want ya to know.”. This makes it much clearer for the reader that his reason of shooting him definitely isn’t that his mad, but to help him. To help Lennie, and to help himself. To help the world.

            Lennie tells George, “Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.”, and even though I don’t think Lennie hereby understands what’s going on, I think George interprets “that place” as the afterworld – even if he maybe doesn’t believe in Lennie going to heaven, he at least believes that he will go to a better world, a tranquillity he cannot purchase in life, but only in death.

            And so George pulls the trigger.

For My Pain… is a Finnish gothic metal band which I got to hear of mainly because their keyboardist is Nightwish’s lead member Tuomas Holopainen. They released their debut album, the masterpiece “Fallen”, in 2003, and they released a following single with three new songs, called “Killing Romance”, in 2004, but since then, they haven’t released anything. A shame, that’s what it is.

The album opener is “My Wound is Deeper Than Yours”, and according to me the song doesn’t quite work as an opener. It’s too boring. You simply can’t make someone understand the potential of Fallen by a song like this one. Sorry, but frankly… fail.

Something I like loads about For My Pain… is that they combine so many different music genres and styles. They can play sad, depressive songs, hard, heavy songs, and happy songs. An example of the latter is the second track, “Dancer in the Dark”. It’s a soooo good feel-good song. Wohoo!

“Queen Misery” is one of the greatest highlights of the album. It’s like good FMP songs are, it’s sad and happy at the same time, depending on how you see it, what you listen for. That’s cool. And you just HAVE to love that chorus.

“Sea of Emotions” is not very high up on my plays, yet it is a good song. I think, though, that it’s too predictable. I like the whispering before the chorus, and the keyboard in the chorus. It’s a very experimental song, I’d say.

The fifth track, entitled “Rapture of Lust” has a really cool guitar intro and chorus (it’s about the same notes on vocals instead). I also like the vocals on this song, very experimental (like all their music, heh). This is another song that can be both sad and happy. Me like. The guitar solo at about three minutes is… really cool.

“Broken Days” is probably my favorite of the album, and every time I listen to it I really recognize my life story among the lyrics… Sad, isn’t it?

According to me, “Dear Carniwhore” is the worse song of the album, way worse than the other songs. I guess every album needs a really heavy song though, and that’s good. It makes me think of some Metallica song, can’t recall which one. Maybe the end of the chorus of Enter Sandman?

“Bed of Dead Leaves”… there’s nothing wrong about the song… it has never succeeded to get through to me though. I can’t understand why. I guess I would count it as neutral. A five if I had to grade it 1-10. I can at least say I like the drums on this track, they’re cool, especially at around 3:30 where it’s a short drum solo.

Okay, I’m going to be honest now. I downloaded the next song (“Autumn Harmony”) at first an hour ago, so I really don’t want to review it yet. Okay? Sorry. :/

At first, “Tomorrow is a Closed Gate (Dead For So Long)” was my favorite track off the album, but now I don’t know. Maybe I played it too much. I’ve started to get annoyed with it. The chorus is good, though, and the lyrics reminds me of Kamelot’s “Don’t You Cry”. It’s a good finale.

That’s all, folks. Thanks for the time.

I wrote this poem between the 16th and 19th of January, 2008.

Hush, my dear
Let the winter whisper its message
Don’t say a word
As we wander through the ages
In this winter wonderland

I can’t sleep
When we lay down in the wintery world
Don’t try to breathe
It’s hard enough to live as it is
In this winter wonderland

When everyone around me sleep forever, rest forever
I wander out in the snow
To find my long lost love
Who betrayed me long ago
Who I still feel for

The snow lay white beneath my bare feet
As I search for thy corpse in the ice
As I know I’ll never find thee.

Another one of my poems. Written 2007.12.05 – 2007.12.07.

My heart is lost between two words in a verse
I try to call for someone to aid me
But my throat is dry,
my lips are chapped
and my tongue is numb
So I am dying in the cold tonight

Fear of the dark is closing unto me
The mountains within me forever still
You said this moment is the sanctuary of my soul
But the sanctuary is too big
for both my body and my soul
So I am dying in the cold tonight

Turning from the crepuscule of the world
Reaching for the opposite hay
Reaching for the white lands of innocence
Reaching for an alternative world
bereavement of this total eclipse you call my life
So I am dying in the cold tonight

On June 5, 2007, American power metal band Kamelot released their eight studio album entitled “Ghost Opera”. I downloaded (I am ashamed, please forgive me) the album the same summer.

Since I first heard Kamelot (with first loves like “The Haunting (Somewhere in Time)” and “The Black Halo”) in the summer of 2006, I’ve loved the band. There is something special with their ability to combine some of my favorite genres in metal: symphonic, progressive, power and (on later albums) gothic. My love for the band is nothing that changes with this album, not at all. As a first comment on it… I love the title and art work… I will buy it as soon as I get some money, I promise. However, I more want to buy their “One Cold Winter’s Night” DVD. It seems cool.

Over to the review.

The album kicks off with a one minute instrumental entitled “Solitaire”, that really feels like a waste of time, or an excuse to have eleven tracks on the album, cause it sounds much better than eleven…. A solo violin playing the most boring notes, where’s the KAMELOT? Just skip the track… I do.

“Rule the World”, the second track, is one of those songs that has nothing special that sticks out, but that it’s nothing wrong with. I like the raise of Roy Khan’s voice in the chorus, and it’s quite speedy. It doesn’t really touch me otherwise, but it’s really an okay song.

The main track has an eponymous title with the album. “Ghost Opera” is a speedy, interesting breaking-border song. And GOD that video’s fabulous! It’s quite boring in a way, though… I can refer to Sonata Arctica’s song “Wolf & Raven”; the song seems to have a great potential but everything fades when it sounds the same without grande changes. It’s not catchy enough.

“The Human Stain” is the fourth track of the album. It is a cynic’s view of the world: everything bad, human kind’s selfishness (“No one really wants to die to save the world”), and the wish to be an innocent child again. It is a good, cool and catchy song, that is sad and interesting with gothic metal-similarities such as the keyboard playing throughout the song.

“Blücher” is based on the sinking of the the German cruiser of the same name in World War II. It’s a bit like “Rule the World” but better; it’s quite neutral, nothing good nor bad about it… It’s cool with the intro as well as some parts of the background that’s just filled with sounds of the war; screaming, shooting etcetera.

And here comes what I would presume is my favorite track of the album. “Love You to Death” is a beautiful story about a couple where the girl is dying, and this is his speech to her about how he will stay by her forever, love her to death… It’s the longest song off the album (5:13) and for that I’m glad. It has a cool intro and a catchy chorus… Me like.

“Up Through the Ashes” is what I would call one of the heaviest song of the album. It’s quite angry. I like it.

“Mourning Star” is quite neutral. I’ve got nothing against it, despite it’s not one of my favorite. Guess I miss some kind of turn that never shows up.

Vocalist Roy Khan tries lots of new vocal methods in the song “Silence of the Darkness”. It also holds a great guitar solo that has a cool, outstanding sound. I guess I’ll try it as soon as I have the powers. This is one of the songs that seems really cool live (I might go to their Stockholm concert in May, 2008, wih).

Kamelot is really good on slow, sad songs, and they usually have at least one per album. On Ghost Opera, “Anthem” is the one. It is a sad piano song with a fascinating chorus and beautiful yet sad lyrics. I keep listening for the introduction of sudden drums in the end, by “I’ll be the best I can”. That would sound great… WHY NOT?

The final song of the album is “EdenEcho” which is another song that would be lovely live. It doesn’t really make it unto my mind, so I cannot count it as one of my favorites. Yet it has a cool chorus.

Tracklisting:

1. “Solitaire” – 1:00
2. “Rule the World” – 3:40
3. “Ghost Opera” – 4:06
4. “The Human Stain” – 4:01
5. “Blücher” – 4:03
6. “Love You to Death” – 5:13
7. “Up Through the Ashes” – 4:59
8. “Mourning Star” – 4:37
9. “Silence of the Darkness” – 3:43
10. “Anthem” – 4:24
11. “EdenEcho” – 4:13

The album also features two bonus tracks (“The Pendulous Fall” and “Season’s End”), both which I haven’t heard.