Ground Control To Major Tom

This morning, Denmark's first ever real astronaut went to work at the Baikonkur Cosmodrome launch facility in Kazakhstan, to be sent on a scientific mission at the International Space Station, way out there, somewhere.

We have been in media craze over this the last week or so, so every Dane feels that he or she knows Andreas Mogensen by now - Andreas, who also happens to be this genuinely nice, good looking, level headed (and insanely well educated - check his bio!) kind of guy. You feel confident that he is gonna make it just fine, out there in the chilling emptiness. Which is not empty at all, of course - that being the whole point of space exploration!

So I'm a bit star struck this morning, if I may say so. Talk about a crazy line of work - that takes some courage and wild determination. 

So have a nice one, Andreas, and come back safely to your wife and little daughter. Let's have a song.

Here are my top three songs about life in space...

David Bowie tops the list, obviously.
The 'Space Oddity' video is a real gem, a brilliant live recording from 1973 I never saw before. 

Elton John's 'Rocket Man' is just one of my favorite songs, period. And one of my best running or driving songs, by the way. I wonder if they listen to it up in the Sojuz rocket?

The last one, 'Rocket Brothers' by the Danish band Kashmir is a great song, but I love the video almost as much as the song. The animation video is by cartoonist and writer Anders Morgenthaler, and is a whole, little drama in itself.

Crash

About a week ago my old (old being the operative word), otherwise trustworthy DELL pc finally decided to crash on me, and go out with a bang. I work with a laptop plus an external harddisk, attatched to a docking station, and have a large screen on my desk, as well as a traditional keyboard, a cordless mouse and a pen + pad thingy (which I am in the process of learning to use, by the way). The particular way my workstation is set up, is a very personal thing to me - I'm not saying I can't work anywhere else, but it's like an old favourite overcoat, where everything is just right. The perfect number of pockets, not too warm, versatile and timeless, and you always know exactly in which pocket your keys or your phone are. You get the drift. And as to the interior of the pc itself, oh my, everything is just customized and arranged in the very particular ways I like to organize things - and I am fiercely protective of my pc, nobody gets to muck about in it, or install or reinstall or what have you, without my being very wary about it.

The thing is, I am not a nerd who knows just everything about how to maintain equipment. I guess I'm a typical old school creative sort of gadget user; I know just enough to keep out of support's way - but when the shit really hits the fan, I am lost.

So the other day, I just sat there, in my good old office chair, having a jolly old time with some work, when the display started to zig zag in some rather pretty, pink hues. The fan went whirring like crazy, and the whole thing sounded like an old microwave oven. My husband - the software engineer - told me to lock down, carefully vacuum the fan through the lattice, let rest, and reboot.

I did, and I all I got was this. Green, fluttering pixels.

Not exactly as pretty as below, but I will show you this instead, because it looks much cooler.

And gone it was. That is, all of it's everyday, vital functions. Apparently this is what an overheated, overstuffed old pc with a smashed graphics card looks like. Enter the husband - software engineer and life saver - with a gizmo, in which you could insert the disk from this stranded whale, and sort of make a transplant of its brain contents, into a new, fresh body. I was lucky, and lost no files, as far as I can see. Phew.

So now I am in the painstaking process of moving thousands of files into a new pc, and everything is just white and empty and smells like paint. I don't know my way around the neighbourhood, so I can't find a supermarket or the short cut to the metro station. You know the feeling. But I am getting there. Today I restored my hundreds and hundreds of organized and categorized bookmarks from Firefox (I've never tried that before, and it was really easy!), and it's starting to feel like home again.

Welcome back sun, and welcome to a little girl

It is winter solstice today, and which day could be better to have as your first day in the world?

My little niece was born last night (so no more waiting - and an explanation for yesterdays slightly cryptic post), and I welcome both her and the sun, who will be making a comeback of sorts, every day from now on, and until midsummer! And she was not even supposed to be born now, she was a little handful of days early, but maybe she was impatient or maybe she just insisted on becoming a saggitarius!

Winter solstice is, in many ways, the real christmas day to me - a tiny glimpse of perfect balance between darkness and light, before the sun takes over again (correction: I just knew something was wrong, when I wrote this: and of course it is - I got the equinox and the solstice mixed up in my head, so not balance, of course - but just the darkest it gets!)

I want to celebrate the winter solstice with Little Sun - this wonderful piece of gadgetry, symbolism, art and innovative, charitable thinking in one yellow starburst.

The Little Sun was invented by world famous artist Olafur Eliasson and engineer Frederik Ottesen, and it is a small solar powered high quality LED-lamp, sold as a fund raising (and quite practical - 'a work of art that works in life') objet d'art in our corner of the world, and sold for a very reasonable price by local Little Sun businesses in those areas of the world where electricity is not the self evident service it is around here.

Having access to dependable, cheap (in this case practically free) lighting makes a major difference in life. It enables you to lengthen the productive hours of the day - for homework, for thinking, for socializing. It is hard for most of us to imagine the impact it has on daily routines, if you cannot even depend on a bit of light.

I spent some time in Addis Abeba myself, where power blackouts are an annoying daily phenomenon, and where cheap solar power and LED technology has meant a truly great difference to the millions of inhabitants in this vast city. 

I am neither a sociologist nor a politician, but I have no doubt that this is an example of the many little ways that simple, low tech technology can and will change the world, long term.

I love how happy, simple and optimistically appealing this little lamp looks. You should buy one - now!

Buy it directly from the Little Sun webshop, or find lists of local retailers.

Danes can shop and support a special Little Sun Uganda charity project here

This blog has a number of american readers, and should you by chance be anywhere near Venice, Los Angeles, I have this special recommendation; buy it from the supercool Danish art gallery / design pop up shop HURRA! They also have a webshop, that carry Little Sun (and a lot of other lovely things), and I think today is their last chance for US holiday shipping. Go shop!

Last, I will link to a beautiful video, from the Sustania Award show in Copenhagen, earlier this year.
See the video here!

115 Stars

I have a lot on my desk right now, and it is crazy crazy.
But I am slowly working my way through the piles of serious business, in order to find time to
idle around with macramé string and pretty paper patterns. And that sort of thing, you know....

However, I want to show you something I stumbled upon yesterday.

I regularly read the blog Carpe Item, written by the lovely faroese Svanna Joensen. 
She often posts interesting and beautiful things, and I particularly enjoy when she writes
about the Faroe Islands, a place I dream of visiting some day.

The other day, she linked to this fantastic project (in Switzerland), and I just have to show you!
I never heard of it, and perhaps you didn't either?

As an art project, it really has everything, if you ask me; an interesting idea - an idea both 
breathtakingly simple, beautiful and somewhat nerdy, demanding meticulous preparation. 
Also, it involves people, and it is interesting to think about the hours the artist must have put into 
explaining his idea, both aesthetically and practically, to a whole lot of people.

Last, but not least, this work will leave something behind, with so many people, even though it is
essentially ephemeral - the neighbours in that building will talk about it for the rest of their lives.
And, just think about that: they will talk with each other! 

But enough talk from me:
Here is Andreas Gysins '115 stars' project from 2002. The video is about 16 minutes long,
please enjoy it in all its lenght, and read the notes.

Go to the video om Vimeo - click here

Desk: Getty TIME / LIFE Archives
115 Stars: copyright Andreas Gysin