The Kavli Post

Singer Seeks Band

The Editor — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:31:02 +0000

A husky voice and a belly full of air needs accompaniment. Influences range from Bluegrass to Beatbox. In time we might rock more than the Kavli Auditorium. Contact Dan “the Voice from Tomorrow”, at my private address: 1314 1/2 2nd Street, 80036 Kavli. You’ll hear me down the road.

Dancing

Simon Robertsen — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 22:38:11 +0000

So you thought we didn’t dance? Well, we do, like there’s no tomorrow. Kavli is practically the dancing equivalent to Las Vegas around here. Shoes are worn out faster here than a roll of the dice on your average table.

Just the other night, having put the children to bed and rented some videos for the babysitter, my wife and I went out for a little local jiving. We got into our favourite outfits, well, I greased my hair, and she put on some stockings for a change.

On our way over there we put on that tape too, that one with those Footprints in the Sand, and we sang along as a cool autumn breeze rushed all around our hot bodies. Ha, I like that, I like that image. I ain’t too sophisticated, you know it, so that’s all I’m gonna serve up tonight: cool autumnal air rushing in through the windows, over our young warm bodies. Pretty saucy for someone with a bit of an imagination.

So we danced, my wife and I, till I got too sweaty and thirsty and we had to sit down and relax for a while. And that’s nice too. Just sitting there at the back of the room with a cold beer and a hot wife by my side. There’s something that takes away my feeling of being so damn myself, you know, something that fuses me with that thick air of human breath, cigarette smoke and seediness. It’s a dancing experience. Sweaty, thirsty, randy, happy, young.

My wife kissed me then, on the cheek first, and later on the beer soaked lips. She gets carried away. I don’t blame her. The dark room wouldn’t want it any other way. Another beautiful image, if you ask me.

An Early Winter

The Editor — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 22:08:50 +0000

Winter has come early this year. At least in the mountains. It’s not unusual, but, I wouldn’t say it’s normal either. Anyway. We’ve had a long summer holiday here at the Post. Maybe too long some would say, but then again, we’ve been out traveling, both of us, Simon and myself. What can you do? Travel is the food of the soul they say, you know, Navigare Necessere Est, Vivere Non, so, what have you?

Well you have some stories to look out for in the weeks and months to come, if nothing else. And that is something, as the opposite of nothing, and I dare say it’s pretty good. We’ll be taking our local approach to the Orient, and also a much needed local look at both the southern parts of America and Europe. Like I said, we’ve been out and about.

But not to forget our lovely homestead of Kavli. Oh no. And who would want to really? Well, not me, I’m from here, and I love it, born and raised in the land of plenty ‘ plenty of honey and milk and bees and bonnets and knees and those things that seem to be lacking everywhere else these days.

Yeah, to tell you the truth, I’m darn happy to be home again. Home is where a yokel like myself belongs. The city only makes me blue and melancholic and a touch too thirsty. No, when I come home, over that mountain, and see that morning glow of an early sunrise, my heart, the thing that keeps this mysterious machinery going, it slows down a beat or two, and I feel more myself again, whoever that really is – knowing that there is a place for me too, among all that noise and activity and being and becoming.

My Neighbour

The Editor — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 07:51:45 +0000

They come to see him nearly every day now, the emergency services. He’s my neighbour, and he doesn’t open the door. So they stand outside and knock and scream. I suppose they’re afraid he’s gonna die. They tell him to open the door, but he pretends he can’t hear them. I know. He’s told me. He’s told me how his son sends them over. His son the mayor, who knows everybody. Afraid of loosing his father now. To some random fall against the cooker, a sudden slip on the bathroom floor. And then the thought of him lying there for days without anyone knowing. It’s a thought too far for the mayor. So he sends them over, and I can tell they’re tired of it as well. Tired of expecting to find him dead. I think they sympathize. Why shouldn’t an old man be allowed to be alone?

At night when they’re gone I can hear him shuffling around. He pulls his slippers across the floor like metal chains. Constantly back and forth. He irritates me then, while I’m trying to work. Old people up at night, and in the early morn, what is it with them? He seems to want to suck the most out of his remaining time. So he walks back and forth. Ah, I sympathize as well, but he’s a stubborn man, and stubbornness has a way of getting to me, no matter how.

Like my own stubbornness. I haven’t really left the house in a week. Maybe that’s why he irritates me? It might as well be me they come to check on. But they don’t. The editor of the Kavli Post is left alone. It goes with the territory. Once I started writing, years and years ago, I came to expect the loneliness, and miss it when I was around people. My own loneliness is something I can handle well. But that of others? No. I hate it. And that’s why he gets to me, my neighbour. I start to worry as well. I know he’s not working on a novel in there, I know that much. So what is he doing? He must be feeling strange. So restless at night, and quiet during the day. When I hear him I get so terribly sad. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I wish he would just give up. But I know he won’t.

The Perfect Stranger

The Editor — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:42:19 +0000

This perfect stranger came to town the other day. Tall guy, short hair and a small mustache. Showed up at the office asking for Simon, but Simon was at home, tending the sick wife, or so he said, so it fell to me to take the stranger for a quick tour around town. That’s what he wanted, a quick look around. Said he’d heard so much about Kavli he couldn’t wait to see the stadium, and Main, and if we had the time, maybe the unfinished byway to the M10. Why he wanted to see that, I didn’t get, but so he said. “Show me the byway, over where the water is sitting idle in that stinking pool.”

I’m afraid I’m so terribly proud of our little community, I didn’t think twice about what he wanted to see, nor about the way he said it. Not until later. At the time I just grabbed the keys to the company car and we both tip-toed down the stairs, got in, and drove off.

‘Look over there, that’s the grocery store’, I said, and pointed to the little shop run by Sophie Pips, herself standing outside waving at me and smiling her soft and silent smile. ‘That’s Sophie my girl’, I said. I didn’t notice his reaction. Too much on my mind right then, too much to show and tell. We went on, past the gas-station and the post-office, down Little Grittle Street, onto the Panto shortcut, so named after Panto the short-stop who’d always be late for games, and cut through here while the crowds were already cheering. Panto is dead by now, like so many others. I told the stranger this, and he didn’t seem to care. ‘Show me the byway’, he said. And I obliged.

When we got down there I noticed something peculiar about the man. He didn’t seem to be wearing any socks in his leather shoes. A pair of bluish ankles was all there was, blinking momentarily like pale soft emeralds when he got out of the car. And then I took a closer look, as we stood there pondering the stale dark water, and I noticed he didn’t have any eyebrows, only just, and the colour of his eyes seemed to match that of his reddish nose. And the same nose was dripping with a blank thick fluid. He wiped it every two seconds with his bare hand.

‘Let’s go back’, he said, turning around, and getting in the car before I could reply. By then I was more than happy to get out of there, and we drove back to the office in a terrifying silence. He left me at the door, with only a slight nod of the head. A perfect stranger. Knew Simon he said. Tall and lanky as a dead birch tree. What was his name? He didn’t say. He just walked off towards the bus-station, and when I blinked he was gone. A large truck drove by and a few birds twittered.

Someone said the man in the photograph is him. I don’t know, it might be.

As If They Knew Him

Simon Robertsen — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:03:44 +0000

As if they knew him. My uncle. That he lay dying today. Like a long visible thunderclap over the grey sky. A loud recognition of his life ebbing away. They came as if they knew him. How odd, I thought. I wished he could’ve seen them. But then again, his eyes might have been shut already. I got up and took this picture from my bedroom window, thinking of this. What would he have thought? If the last sounds he ever heard were the sounds of jet-engines?

How strange. One among so many, a normal man, a sailor, familiar with the seven seas. And later, a railway man when the railway still meant something. And then this, this parade of power, technology and might, rolling over my head, sitting here thinking of him, in that hospital room so far away.

When they were gone the usual noise of my neighbours resurfaced. I thought about my mother standing next to him. I thought about the few puffs of air leaving him like seeds from a dandelion, like they had left his brother, only last year. I tried to imagine the fluffy things filling up the room around him where he lay, surrounded by the rest of our small family.

It made me cry to think like that. Too much poetry to handle right now, I thought, and took my raincoat and went out for a walk. Too much emotion to handle right now. I couldn’t face it. But it wasn’t enough for him. I knew that. It wasn’t enough at all. To make up for a whole life.

Take it easy Knut

Simon Robertsen — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:45:39 +0000

Oh the dream. And the waking up. A small town and a big star. Last night. I just wandered down and there I was, in the purple light. The sunset. A converted church. On Main. Hello! Please come in, oh you don’t have a ticket, no problem sir. And the songs, and the stuff, whatever, etc. So seldom does this happen to us, here in the middle of nowhere, graced by the holy ghost and his Cardinals. And Knut. Stuffing his bearface with eggs, his head with tricks and treats.

It must sound confusing. And it was, for a while. Me, Simon, at the recording of a TV-show? How did that come about? And with Ryan, Ryan Adams. Shit. I sat there transfixed. Farmerboy of local origin. A musical fan. Suddenly I knew all the words, the tabs and harmonies. Wow. On Main, just down here in Kavlitown. Filmed for TV. And I didn’t even ask what station. Who cares.

After, on the street again. Waking up so to speak, thinking about what I had to do today: spraying that field down by Romney Lake, painting the old barn, the one I’ve turned into a sauna. Take it easy I thought, don’t worry so much, and relax. Work on what matters, and work hard at that. The other stuff, forget it.

This time I’m speeding with no direction. Without a reason. What is this fire? Burning slowly. My one and only. Desire.

What does he mean? Ryan. What do you mean? I think I know what you mean, but I won’t try to explain. I’d only fumble it. Seriously, and then what’s the point? Figure it out for yourself. And then tape it for your local TV.

My Meeting City-claw

Simon Robertsen — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:43:01 +0000

What’s up with this cool cat? I like the attitude. Small-town boy like myself, I’ve got a little to learn from this specimen. So self-assured, or, if you like, ‘at ease’ with itself. I wanted to pat this cat, but no chance. Like you see from the photograph, the window came between us. Typical big-town problem; cannot let the cat out, must keep the cat inside, behind the window. Yeah, I took this picture on my latest trip to Brincoville, a five hour dead-boring drive from here.

And now I’m back and I’m thinking about the cat. Check out those whiskers, check out the cool fur and the slightly raised lip. Damn, that’s a movie-star kind of lip. I bet if you gave this cat some dry cat-food it would kick you in the leg, and maybe bite too. No, this one wants freshly killed mice or nothing at all. My own cat eats what the pigs don’t have. He even eats sawdust. Of course, he’s a country bumpkin. No match for this city-claw.

And now it’s late. Here at the office the sun has just fallen off the back wall, and left a slight orange glow in the air. Don’t take that drive to Brincoville if you don’t have to, and if you have to, make sure you look up this feline fireball.

The Ghosts

The Editor — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:00:27 +0000

Some people get to be ghosts, for a living, and making some cash too. The writers these are, the ghosters, whose voices channel through another person, coming through like a muffled something, a stew of ambition and cash-flow problems.

‘Tom‘, as he would like to be known, has sometimes even ghosted for me, and I must say, he keeps it real. I’ll just leave him a few notes and some lunch-money, and off he goes, into anonymity, the ghost world of late-night computer-humming, dimmed lights and bad hygiene. When I come back, from wherever I have been, he’s still there, flexing those squeaking finger-joints, coughing that silent ghostly cough.

I’ll go over and peek over his shoulder, and they’ll be there: my words, my thoughts, but not my work. He leaves then, says goodbye without much fuss, and I can hardly remember he was there. My ghost-writer ‘Tom‘. Always the polite one, the diligent worker, he never complains. If only I was as good as he is.

Scoring with the Heart

The Editor — Thu, 24 May 2007 20:54:50 +0000

Apparently, in other countries, they play football (soccer to you dimwits) on pitches like this. This particular example taken from the harbor of Montevideo. At noon. Too warm for even the laziest of penalty-kicks. And who would have chased the lost ball anyway? Not me. No, give me a covered grassy surface with dew on it. And nets. Solid green nets hung with precision, and tightly.

And then at half-time, some soft oranges and a sports-drink, isotonic, a real thirst-quencher. What on earth are they thinking? Running around on this piece of wasteland. The nausea of so much meaningless hardship.

One of our Latin-America correspondents once told me that nets are against a particular strand of Catholicism. Something to do with the Holy Ghost, he said, and not putting up barriers, like a net, or anything that would catch anything flying through a wooden structure. ‘The belief is,’ he said, ‘that by keeping the goals open, it adds a certain spiritual dimension to the game, like: not only knocking the ball in with your foot, but also sometimes with your heart’ And who would want a goal scored by the heart to be caught by something as flimsy as a net?’